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6. Empathy - Making people feel understood, and striving to truly understand them is powerful. Everyone wants to be understood. People want to know that they are not alone in the world. If you can reach out to understand another person, you’ll instantly form a great connection with them. Next time someone tells you something heavy that you could have a long discussion on, instead try saying just “I understand.” You’ll be amazed at how uplifting it can make other people feel.
7. Not trying to impress - Somewhat accomplished people want everyone to know about the accomplishments they’ve made. Really amazing people are much more humble and low key about what they’ve done. The most impressive people never actively try to impress people. The result is that a man trying to impress communicates that he’s not impressive.
8. Showing praise and appreciation - Whenever you see anything you like in another person, let them
know. If people aren’t used to you opening up, praising, and appreciating constantly, you might get a funny reaction at first. Once you’ve established that you’re constantly on the lookout for great things in others, people get used to feeling empowered around you. When you do mention something you really like, keep it casual. No big deal, no long talk. Just, “Hey, I really appreciate that you did that.” “I thought that was
really cool how you did that.”
9. Never criticizing, ever, for any reason - Likable people never criticize others. People universally hate criticism, and hate people that criticize them. Likable people always start off with genuine praise and appreciation before trying to give constructive feedback, and will only give this feedback rarely (because likable people understand that praise is a much better way to help people change than even constructive feedback, and criticizing is almost always useless).
10. Not trying to fix other peoples’ problems - When someone tells you they have a problem, but doesn’t explicitly ask for your help, that means they do not want you to tell them how to solve it. They want to feel understood, cared about, and empowered. Over 90% of the time, people know the solutions to their own problems. If someone brings a minor problem to you, try listening, nodding, letting them know you understand, and you’re with them. Tell them you believe in them and you think they’ll sort it out. If they ask what you’d do, maybe make a quick suggestion but don’t drive the point really hard. As crazy as it sounds, most people do not tell others about their problems in order to get solutions; they want understanding, empathy, and reassurance. People are very strong and quite good at solving their own problems when believed in.
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August 25, 2008
Good list, I hadn’t read that before. Wanted to add my two cents on a couple of items:
1. Smiling: I’ve spent HOURS working on smiling, to the point where I spent time taking pictures of myself with various smiles. Seriously. A photogenic smile felt super awkward the first several zillion times I did it, so I never did it in real life, but now my smile looks nice and photographs well. If you make this one change it’ll go a long way. I can usually get people to open up to me based on this alone.
2. Same deal with eye contact, I went through a stretch working on alpha eye contact and was surprised by the results. I’m better at communicating strength and sexiness with focused eye contact.
3. Imposing weakness. This one is huge! This is the biggest difference between my AFC friends and my pimp friends. My pimp friends always exude positivity and “bring each other up,” while the AFC’s bag on each other and unconstructively point out the negative. No matter who you’re hanging out with, bring the positive and make people feel good.
Recent Words from Lance..The Weekly: Honey Edition
August 26, 2008
Although you don’t want to “force” your opinion on others… giving a GOOD tip is awesome as well….
… something “underground” that no one knows… that they can get results from.
Even if they didn’t ask for it (but it has to be good).
Too many people are always on the “take”
Recent Words from Brad..The Dirtiest Manipulation Technique That No One Talks About
August 26, 2008
Always be positive? So much for that “negging” we were all nursed up on…
August 26, 2008
Aaron, do a websearch on ‘Mutual Value Escalation’ by Seb. I don’t have any links on the topic.
August 27, 2008
Aaron says: ‘Always be positive? So much for that “negging” we were all nursed up on…’
If you’re downbeat and negative in your general vibe and you neg someone it may well fall a bit flat.
But if you make the same neg and you are positive and upbeat in your vibe it will come across more like playful teasing.
Girls like it.
Here’s why:
The other day my friend Mark negged me (AMOGging me) but because he’s a positive guy and I really like him it actually made me feel re-affirmed as his friend - and he is safe in the knowledge that he can bust my balls and we can laugh about it (and I can do that to him, too).
By negging a girl while projecting a *positive* vibe the same thing is happening - you’re being ‘familiar’ with her like you would with a friend. Its this ‘being familiar’ vibe that makes the girl actually feel comfortable with you but at the same time want to chase you, because she subconsiously feels like you are sub-communicating that she is in your ‘friend zone’, like my *actual friend* Mark did, with me.
Hope that makes some kind of sense …