How To Make People Like You In 90 Seconds Or Less (2 page)

Instinctively, we assess, undress and best-guess each other. And if we can't present
ourselves fast and favorably, we run the risk of being politely, or impolitely, passed
over.

The second reason for establishing likability in 90 seconds or less has to do with the
human attention span. Believe it or not, the attention span of the average person is about 30 seconds!
Focusing attention has been compared to controlling a troop of wild monkeys. Attention
craves noveltyit needs to be entertained and loves to leap from branch to branch, making
new connections. If there's nothing fresh and exciting for it to focus on, it becomes
distracted and wanders off in search of something more compellingdeadlines, football or
world peace.

Read this sentence, then look away from the book and fix your attention on anything
that isn't moving (a great piece of art doesn't count). Keep your eyes on the object for
30 seconds. You'll probably feel your eyes glazing over after just 10 seconds, if not
before.

In face-to-face communication, it's not enough to command the other person's attention.
You must also be able to hold on to it long enough to deliver your message or intention.
You will capture attention with your likability, but you will hold on to it with the
quality of rapport you establish. More and more it comes down to three things: 1) your
presence, i.e., what you look like and how you move; 2) your attitude, i.e., what you say,
how you say it and how interesting you are; and 3) how you make people feel.

When you learn how to make fast, meaningful connections with people, you will improve
your relationships at work and even at home. You will discover the enjoyment of being
able to approach anyone with confidence and sincerity. But a word of caution: we're not
about to change your personality; this is not a new way of being, not a new way of life.
You are not getting a magic wand to rush out into the street with and have the world
inviting you to dinnerthese are connecting skills to be used only when you need them.

Establishing rapport in 90 seconds or less with another person or group, be it in a social
or community setting or with a business audience or even in a packed courtroom, can be
intimidating for many people. It has always amazed me that in this most fundamental of all
life skills, we've been given little or no training. You are about to discover that you
already possess many of the abilities needed for making natural connections with other
peopleit's just that you were never aware of them before.

to make them as natural, fluid and easy as possible, and above all to make them enjoyable and rewarding.

Obviously, you begin the connecting process by meeting people. Sometimes you meet someone by chancethe woman on the train who turns out to share your passion for Bogart movies. And sometimes it's by choicethe man your cousin introduced you to because he loves Shakespeare, fine wines and bungee jumping,

just like you.

If meeting is the physical coming together of two or more people, then communicating is what we do from the moment we are fully aware of another's presence. And between these two eventsmeeting and communicatinglies the 90-second land of rapport that links them together.

We call the first few seconds of contact the “greeting.” Greetings are broken into five
parts: OpenEye BeamHi!Lean. These five actions constitute a welcoming program to carry
out in a first encounter.

Open. The first part of the greeting is to open your attitude and your body. For this to work
successfully, you must have already decided on a positive attitude that's right for you.
This is the time to really feel and be aware of it.

Check to see that your body language is open. If you have the right attitude, this should
take care of itself. Keep your heart aimed directly at the person you're meeting. Don't
cover your heart with your hands or arms and, when possible, unbutton your jacket or coat.

Eye. The second part of the greeting involves your eyes. Be first with eye contact. Look this
new person directly in the eye. Let your eyes reflect your positive attitude. To state the
obvious: eye contact is real contact!

Get used to really looking at other people's eyes. When you're watching TV one evening,
note the eye color of as many people as possible and say the name of the color to
yourself. The next day, do the same with every person you meet, looking him or her
straight in the eye.

Beam. This part is closely related to eye contact. Beam! Be the first to smile. Let your smile
reflect your attitude.

Now you've gained the other person's attention through your open body language, your eye
contact and your beaming smile. What that person is picking up subconsciously is an
impression not of some grinning, gawking fool (though you may briefly fear you look like
one!) but of someone who is completely sincere.

Hi! Whether it's “Hi!” or “Hello!” or even “Yo!” say it with pleasing tonality and attach
your own name to it (“Hi! I'm Naomi”). As with the smile and the eye contact, be the first
to identify yourself. It is at this point, and within only a few seconds, that you are in
a position to gather tons of free information about the person you're meetinginformation
you can put to good use later in your conversation.

Take the lead. Extend your hand to the other person, and if it's convenient find a way to
say his or her name two or three times to help fix it in memory. Not “Glenda, Glenda, Glenda, nice to meet
you” but “Glenda. Great to meet you, Glenda!” As you'll see in Chapter 7, this will be
followed by your “occasion/location statement.”

Lean. The final part of introducing yourself is the “lean.” This action can be an almost
imperceptible forward tilt to very subtly indicate your interest and openness as you
begin to “synchronize” the person you've just met.

Handshakes run the gamut from the strong, sturdy bonecrusher to the wet noodle. Both are
memorableonce shaken, twice shy, in some cases.

Certain expectations accompany a handshake. It should be firm and respectful, as it you
were ringing a hand bell for room service. Deviate from these expectations and the other
person will scramble to make sense of what's happening. There is a feeling that something
is wronglike hot water coming out of the cold tap. The brain hates confusion, and when
faced with it the first instinct is to withdraw.

The “hands-free” handshake is a handshake without the hand, and it is a powerful tool.
Just do everything you would do during a normal handshake but without using your hand.
Point your heart at the other person and say hello. Light up your eyes and smile, and give
off

This is one of the most powerful exercises we do in my seminars, but even without
supervision you can turn it into a force to be reckoned with!

You'll need a partner to work with. Stand about eight feet apart, facing each other like
two gunfighters in a cowboy movie. As you say “Hi!” clap your hands together and slide
your right hand off and past the other in the direction of your partner. Gather up all the
energy you can throughout your body and store it in your heart, then clap the energy on
through your right hand (the one you use in a handshake) straight into the other person's
heart. This is a long explanation for something that takes no more than two seconds, but
when all six channels body, heart, eyes, smile, clap and voice/breathare fired at the
person in a rapid flash there is a vast transfer of energy.

Immediately after receiving the energy, your partner should fire it back at you in the
same way. Taking turns, continue fast and focused, firing at each other. Be sure to make
contact with all six channels at once. Practice on each other for two minutes.

Now the real fun begins. You're going to start firing different qualities of energy:
logic/head energy, com->

munication/throat energy, love/heart energy, power/solar plexus energy and sexual energy.
You've already fired love/heart energy. Now do the same head to head instead of heart to
heart. Keep firing head/logic energy at each other until you both agree that you can feel
and differentiate it from love/heart energy. After two or three minutes back and forth,
try the other regions: throat to throat, solar plexus to solar plexus, etc.

It gets even better. Figure out which kind of energy you want to send, but don't say what
it is. Now greet your partner, shake hands, say “Hi” and fire! Your partner must iden
tify the kind of energy he or she is receiving. Take turns. Practice and practice until
your body language becomes subtle and almost imperceptible.

Next, go out and try it on the people you meet. Fire energy when you say “Hi” to someone
in a supermarket, to your waiter in the cafe, to your sister-in-law or the guy who fixes
the photocopier in your office. They will notice something special about yousome might
call it “star quality.”

that same special energy that usually accompanies the full-blown shake.

Incidentally, the “hands-free” handshake works wonders in presentations when you want to
establish rapport with a group or audience.

Rapport is the establishment of common ground, of a comfort zone where two or more people
can mentally join together. When you have rapport, each of you brings something to the interactionattentiveness, warmth, a sense of humor, for exampleand each brings
something back: empathy, sympathy, maybe a couple of great jokes. Rapport is the lubricant that allows
social exchanges to flow smoothly.

The prize, when you achieve rapport, is the other person's positive acceptance. This
response won't be in so many words, but it will signal something like this: “I know I just
met you, but I like you so I will trust you with my attention.” Sometimes rapport just
happens all by itself, as if by chance; sometimes you have to give it a hand. Get it
right, and the communicating can begin. Get it wrong, and you'll have to bargain for
attention.

As you meet and greet new people, your ability to establish rapport will depend on four
things: your attitude, your ability to “synchronize” certain aspects of behavior like
body language and voice tone, your conversation skills and your ability to discover
which sense (visual, auditory or kinesthetic) the other person relies on most. Once you
become adept in these four areas, you will be able to quickly connect and establish rap
port with anyone you choose and at any time.

Read on, and you'll discover that it's possible to speed up the process of feeling
comfortable with a stranger by quantum-leaping the usual familiarization rituals and going
straight into the routines that people who like each other do naturally. In virtually no
time at all, you will be getting along as if you've known each other for ages. Many of my
students report that when achieving rapport becomes second nature, they find people
asking, “Are you sure we haven't met before?” I know the feeling; it happens to me all the
time. And it's not just people asking me the question. 1 am convinced that half the
people I meet, I've met before that's the way it goes when you move easily into another
person's map of the world. It's a wonderful feeling.

Everyone seems to have a different sense of the word “communication,” but the definitions
usually go something like this: “It's an exchange of information between two or more people“ . . . ”It's getting your message across“ ... ”It's being
understood.”

In the early days of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a research project devoted to
“the study of excellence and a model of how individuals structure their subjective
sensory experience,” Richard Bandler and John Grinder created an effective definition:
“The meaning of communication lies in the response it gets.” This is simple, and brilliant, because it
means that it's 100% up to you whether or not your own communication succeeds. After all, you axe the one with a message to deliver or a goal to achieve, and you are the one with the responsibility to make it happen. What's more, if it doesn't work, you are the one with the flexibility to change what you do until you finally get what you
want. In order to give some form and function to communication here, let's assume that we
have some kind of response or outcome in mind. People who are low on communication skills
usually have not thought out the response they want from the other person in the first
place and therefore cannot aim for it.

The skills you will learn here will serve you on all levels of communication from social
dealings like developing new relationships and being understood in your daily interactions
all the way to life-changing moves for yourself and those in your sphere of influence.

The formula for effective communication has three distinct parts:

Know what you want. Formulate your intention in the affirmative and preferably in the present tense. For
example, “I want a successful relationship, I have filled my imagination with what that
relationship will look, sound, feel, smell and taste like with me in it, and I know when I
will have it” is an affirmative statement, as opposed to “I don't want to be lonely.”

Find out what you're getting. Get feedback. You find that hanging out in smoky bars is not for you.

Change what you do until you get what you want.

Design a plan and follow through with it: “I'll invite 10 people over for dinner every
Saturday night.” Do it and get more feedback. Redesign if necessary, and do it again with
more feedback. Repeat the cycleredesign-do-get feedbackuntil you get what you want. You
can apply this cycle to any area of your life that you want to improvefinance, romance,
sports, career, you name it.