92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (3 page)

Lips Can Speak

Are their data accurate? Amazingly enough, yes. Even before your lips part and the first syllable escapes, the essence of YOU has already axed its way into their brains. The way you look and the way you move is more than 80 percent of someone’s first impression of you. Not one word need be spoken. I’ve lived and worked in countries where I didn’t speak the native language. Yet, without one understandable syllable spoken between us, the years proved my first impressions were on target. Whenever I met new colleagues, I could tell instantly how friendly they felt toward me, how confident they were, and approximately how much stature they had in the company. I could sense, just from seeing them move, who the heavyweights were and who were the welterweights.

I have no extrasensory skill. You’d know, too. How? Because before you have had time to process a rational thought, you get a sixth sense about someone. Studies have shown emotional reactions occur even before the brain has had time to register what’s causing that reaction.4 Thus the moment someone looks at you, he or she experiences a massive hit, the impact of which lays the groundwork for the entire relationship. Bob told me he captures that first hit in creating his caricatures.

Deciding to pursue my own agenda for
How to Talk to Any-
one
, I asked, “Bob, if you wanted to portray somebody really cool—you know, intelligent, strong, charismatic, principled, fascinating, caring, interested in other people. . . .”

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How to Talk to Anyone

“Easy,” Bob interrupted. He knew precisely what I was getting at. “Just give ’em great posture, a heads-up look, a confident smile, and a direct gaze.” It’s the ideal image for somebody who’s a Somebody.

How to Look Like a Somebody

My friend Karen is a highly respected professional in the homefurnishings business. Her husband is an equally big name in the communications field. They have two small sons.

Whenever Karen is at a home-furnishings industry event, everyone pays deference to her. She’s a very important person in that world. Her colleagues at conventions jostle for position just to be seen casually chatting with her and, they hope, be photographed rubbing elbows with her for industry bibles like
Home
Furnishings Executive
and
Furniture World
. Yet, Karen complains, when she accompanies her husband to communications functions, she might as well be a nobody. When she takes her kids to school functions, she’s just another mom. She once asked me, “Leil, how can I stand out from the crowd so people who don’t know me will approach me and at least assume I’m an interesting person?” The techniques in this section accomplish precisely that. When you use the next nine techniques, you will come across as a special person to everyone you meet. You will stand out as a Somebody in whatever crowd you find yourself in, even if it’s not your crowd.

Let’s start with your smile.

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How to Make Your

Smile Magically

Different

In 1936, one of Dale Carnegie’s six musts in
How to Win Friends
and Influence People
was SMILE! His edict has been echoed each decade by practically every communications guru who ever put pen to paper or mouth to microphone. However, at the turn of the millennium, it’s high time we reexamine the role of the smile in high-level human relations. When you dig deeper into Dale’s dictum, you’ll find a 1936 quick smile doesn’t always work. Especially nowadays. The old-fashioned instant grin carries no weight with today’s sophisticated crowd. Look at world leaders, negotiators, and corporate giants. Not a smiling sycophant among them. Key players in all walks of life enrich their smile so, when it does erupt, it has more potency and the world smiles with them.

Researchers have catalogued dozens of different types of smiles. They range from the tight rubber band of a trapped liar to the soft squishy smile of a tickled infant. Some smiles are warm while others are cold. There are real smiles and fake smiles. (You’ve seen plenty of those plastered on the faces of friends who say they’re

“delighted you decided to drop by,” and presidential candidates visiting your city who say they’re “thrilled to be in, uh . . . uh. . . .”)
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How to Talk to Anyone

Big winners know their smile is one of their most powerful weapons, so they’ve fine-tuned it for maximum impact.

How to Fine-Tune Your Smile

Just last year, my old college friend Missy took over her family business, a Midwestern company supplying corrugated boxes to manufacturers. One day she called saying she was coming to New York to court new clients and she invited me to dinner with several of her prospects. I was looking forward to once again seeing my friend’s quicksilver smile and hearing her contagious laugh. Missy was an incurable giggler, and that was part of her charm. When her Dad passed away last year, she told me she was taking over the business. I thought Missy’s personality was a little bubbly to be a CEO in a tough business. But, hey, what do I know about the corrugated box biz?

She, three of her potential clients, and I met in the cocktail lounge of a midtown restaurant and, as we led them into the dining room, Missy whispered in my ear, “Please call me Melissa tonight.”

“Of course,” I winked back, “not many company presidents are called Missy!” Soon after the maître d’ seated us, I began noticing Melissa was a very different woman from the giggling girl I’d known in college. She was just as charming; she smiled as much as ever. Yet something was different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Although she was still effervescent, I had the distinct impression everything Melissa said was more insightful and sincere. She was responding with genuine warmth to her prospective clients, and I could tell they liked her, too. I was thrilled because my friend was scoring a knockout that night. By the end of the evening, Melissa had three big new clients. 01 (001-042B) part one 8/14/03 9:16 AM Page 7

How to Make Your Smile Magically Different

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Afterward, alone with her in the cab, I said, “Missy, you’ve really come a long way since you took over the company. Your whole personality has developed, well, a really cool, sharp corporate edge.”

“Uh uh, only one thing has changed,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“My smile,” she said.

“Your what?” I asked incredulously.

“My smile,” she repeated as though I hadn’t heard her. “You see,” she said, with a distant look coming into her eyes, “when Dad got sick and knew in a few years I’d have to take over the business, he sat me down and had a life-changing conversation with me. I’ll never forget his words. Dad said, ‘Missy, Honey, remember that old song, “I Loves Ya, Honey, But Yer Feet’s Too Big”? Well, if you’re going to make it big in the box business, let me say, “I loves ya, Honey, but your smile’s too quick.” ’

“He then brought out a yellowed newspaper article quoting a study he’d been saving to show me when the time was right. It concerned women in business. The study showed women who were slower to smile in corporate life were perceived as more credible.”

As Missy talked, I began to think about history-making women like Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Madeleine Albright, and other powerful women of their ilk. Not one was known for her quick smile.

Missy continued, “The study went on to say a big, warm smile is an asset. But only when it comes a little slower, because then it has more credibility.” From that moment on, Missy explained, she gave clients and business associates her big smile. However, she trained her lips to erupt more slowly. Thus her smile appeared more sincere and personalized for the recipient.

That was it! Missy’s slower smile gave her personality a richer, deeper, more sincere cachet. Though the delay was less than a sec-01 (001-042B) part one 8/14/03 9:16 AM Page 8

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How to Talk to Anyone

ond, the recipients of her beautiful big smile felt it was special and just for them.

I decided to do more research on the smile. When you’re in the market for shoes, you begin to look at everyone’s feet. When you decide to change your hairstyle, you look at everyone’s haircut. Well, for several months, I became a steady smile watcher. I watched smiles on the street. I watched smiles on TV. I watched the smiles of politicians, the clergy, corporate giants, and world leaders. My findings? Amid the sea of flashing teeth and parting lips, I discovered the people perceived to have the most credibility and integrity were just ever so slower to smile. Then, when they did, their smiles seemed to seep into every crevice of their faces and envelop them like a slow flood. Thus I call the following technique “The Flooding Smile.”

Technique #1

The Flooding Smile

Don’t flash an immediate smile when you greet

someone, as though anyone who walked into your line

of sight would be the beneficiary. Instead, look at the other person’s face for a second. Pause. Soak in their

persona. Then let a big, warm, responsive smile flood

over your face and overflow into your eyes. It will

engulf the recipient like a warm wave. The split-second delay convinces people your flooding smile is genuine

and only for them.

Let us now travel but a few inches north to two of the most powerful communications tools you possess, your eyes.

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How toStrike Everyone as

Intelligent and Insightful

by Using Your Eyes

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say Helen of Troy could launch ships with her eyes and Davy Crockett could stare down a bear. Your eyes are personal grenades that have the power to detonate people’s emotions. Just as martial arts masters register their fists as lethal weapons, you can register your eyes as psychological lethal weapons when you master the following eye-contact techniques. Beloved people in the game of life look beyond the conventional wisdom that teaches “Keep good eye contact.” For one, they understand that to certain suspicious or insecure people, intense eye contact can be a virulent intrusion.

When I was growing up, my family had a Haitian housekeeper whose fantasies were filled with witches, warlocks, and black magic. Zola refused to be left alone in a room with Louie, my Siamese cat. “Louie looks right through me—sees my soul,”

she’d whisper to me fearfully.

In some cultures, intense eye contact is sorcery. In others, staring at someone can be threatening or disrespectful. Realizing this, big players in the international scene prefer to pack a book on cultural body-language differences in their carry-on rather than a Berlitz phrase book. In our culture, however, big winners know exaggerated eye contact can be extremely advantageous, especially
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How to Talk to
Anyone between the sexes. In business, even when romance is not in the picture, strong eye contact packs a powerful wallop between men and women.

A Boston center conducted a study to learn the precise effect.5

The researchers asked opposite-sex individuals to have a twominute casual conversation. They tricked half their subjects into maintaining intense eye contact by directing them to count the number of times their partner blinked. They gave the other half of the subjects no special eye-contact directions for the chat. When they questioned the subjects afterward, the unsuspecting blinkers reported significantly higher feelings of respect and fondness for their colleagues who, unbeknownst to them, had simply been counting their blinks. I’ve experienced the closeness intense eye contact engenders with a stranger firsthand. Once, when giving a seminar to several hundred people, one woman’s face in the crowd caught my attention. The participant’s appearance was not particularly unique. Yet she became the focus of my attention throughout my talk. Why?

Because not for one moment did she take her eyes off my face. Even when I finished making a point and was silent, her eyes stayed hungrily on my face. I sensed she couldn’t wait to savor the next insight to spout from my lips. I loved it! Her concentration and obvious fascination inspired me to remember stories and make important points I’d long forgotten.

Right after my talk, I resolved to seek out this new friend who was so enthralled by my speech. As people were leaving the hall, I quickly sidled up behind my big fan. “Excuse me,” I said. My fan kept walking. “Excuse me,” I repeated a tad louder. My admirer didn’t vary her pace as she continued out the door. I followed her into the corridor and tapped her shoulder gently. This time she whirled around with a surprised look on her face. I mumbled some excuse about my appreciating her concentration on my talk and wanting to ask her a few questions.

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How to Strike Everyone as Intelligent and Insightful by Using Your Eyes
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“Did you, uh, get much out of the seminar?” I ventured.

“Well, not really,” she answered candidly. “I had difficulty understanding what you were saying because you were walking around on the platform facing different directions.”

In a heartbeat, I understood. The woman was hearing impaired. I did not captivate her as I had suspected. She was not intrigued by my talk as I had hoped. The only reason she kept her eyes glued on my face was because she was struggling to read my lips!

Nevertheless, her eye contact had given me such pleasure and inspiration during my talk that, tired as I was, I asked her to join me for coffee. I spent the next hour recapping my entire seminar just for her. Powerful stuff this eye contact.

Make Your Eyes Look Even

More Intelligent

There is yet another argument for intense eye contact. In addition to awakening feelings of respect and affection, maintaining strong eye contact gives you the impression of being an intelligent and abstract thinker. Because abstract thinkers integrate incoming data more easily than concrete thinkers, they can continue looking into someone’s eyes even during the silences. Their thought processes are not distracted by peering into their partner’s peepers.6