Carla played her role to perfection. After a few moments, I excused myself. Neither noticed my departure because they were in animated conversation. It is a skill that will help you win whatever your heart desires from whatever type of beasts you encounter in the social or corporate jungle. The instant the two of you are introduced, reward your new acquaintance. Give the warm smile, the total-body turn, and the undivided attention you would give a tiny tyke who crawled up to your feet, turned a precious face up to yours, and beamed a big toothless grin.
The secret to mak- ing people like you is showing how much you like them! Your body is a twenty-four-hour broadcasting station reveal- ing to anyone within eyeshot precisely how you feel at any given moment. Even if your Hang by Your Teeth posture is gaining their respect, your Flooding Smile and The Big-Baby Pivot are making them feel special, and your Sticky Eyes are capturing their hearts and minds, the rest of your body can reveal any incongruence.
Unfortunately, when meeting someone, our brains are in over- drive. Our brains become lean. Others are frantically sizing up the situation. And hungry. So we think too much instead of respond- 27 Copyright by Leil Lowndes. Such actions are dangerous to impending friendship, love, or commerce. We need a technique to ensure every shot aims right at the heart of our subject. We need to trick our bod- ies into reacting perfectly. When we see someone we love or feel com- pletely comfortable with, we respond warmly from head to toe without a thought.
Our lips part happily. We step closer. Our arms reach out. Our eyes become soft and wide. Even our palms turn up and our bodies turn fully toward our dear friend. It guar- antees that everyone you encounter will feel your warmth. But somehow you lost track of your friend. No information online. None of your mutual friends had a clue.
Suddenly, WOW! What a surprise! After all those years, the two of you are reunited. You are so happy. Obviously, you are not going to try to convince the new person that the two of you are really old friends. You will amaze yourself. You make this new person feel very special indeed. Technique 6 Hello Old Friend When meeting someone, imagine he or she is an old friend an old customer, an old beloved, or someone else you had great affection for. How sad, the vicis- situdes of life tore you two asunder.
But, holy mack- erel, now the party the meeting, the convention has reunited you with your long-lost old friend! The joyful experience starts a remarkable chain reaction in your body from the subconscious softening of your eyebrows to the positioning of your toes—and everything between. The group chats as though at a pleasant semiformal gathering. Later I ask them to introduce themselves to another stranger, imagining they are old friends.
The difference is extraor- dinary. The atmosphere is charged with good feeling. The air sparkles with happier, high-energy people. They are standing closer, laughing more sincerely, and reaching out to one another. When you act as though you like someone, you start to really like them.
When surveyed later, the results showed the volunteers wound up genuinely liking the subjects. The unsuspecting subjects were also surveyed. These respondents expressed much higher respect and affection for the volunteers who pretended they liked them. What it boils down to is love begets love, like begets like, respect begets respect.
You now have all the basics to come across to everyone you meet as a Somebody, a friendly Somebody. In addition to being liked, you want to appear credible, intel- ligent, and sure of yourself. Each of the next three techniques accomplishes one of those goals. Throughout the interview, the applicant had been sitting with her left leg crossed over her right. Her hands were comfortably rest- ing in her lap and she was looking directly at me. Without swerving her eyes from mine, she told me.
I asked if she enjoyed her work. At one point, she put her hands up to her mouth. Nevertheless, it was enough, she said, that she wanted to pursue the subject further.
I asked her about her goals for the future. I asked again if it was only the lack of growth opportunity that made her leave her pre- vious position. Sure enough, once again, the woman shifted in her seat and momentarily broke eye contact. As she continued talking about her last job, she started rubbing her forearm. Just recently a colleague of mine was considering hiring an in- house booking agent. He looked right at me. He answered all my questions directly. Because of that, many large companies turn to the polygraph, or lie detector, a mechanical apparatus designed to detect if someone is lying.
How to Come Across as Percent Credible to Everyone 33 Banks, drugstores, and grocery stores rely heavily on it for pre- employment screening.
Interest- ingly, the polygraph is not a lie detector at all! So is it accurate? Well, yes, often it is. Because when the average person tells a lie, he or she is emotionally aroused and bodily changes do take place. Experienced or trained liars, however, can fool the polygraph.
A young man telling an attractive woman about his business success might shift his weight. More problems arise out of the atmosphere. A politician giving a speech outdoors could blink excessively because the air is dusty.
Professional communicators, alert to this hazard, consciously squelch any signs anyone could mistake for shiftiness. They never put their hands on their faces. If you want to come across as an entirely credible Somebody, try to squelch all extraneous movement when your communica- tion counts. And above all, keep your paws away from your puss. Hans was owned by Herr von Osten, a Berliner, who had trained Hans to do simple arithmetic by tapping his right front hoof. He became known as Clever Hans, the counting horse.
Herr von Osten taught Hans to do more than just add. Soon the horse could subtract and divide. In time, Clever Hans even mastered the multiplication tables. The horse became quite a phe- nomenon. Without his owner uttering a single word, Hans could count out the size of his audience, tap the number wearing glasses, or respond to any counting question they asked him.
Finally, Hans achieved the ultimate ability that separates man from animal—language. By tapping out hoof beats for each letter, he answered any question about any- thing humans had read in a newspaper or heard on the radio. He could even answer common questions about history, geography, and human biology. Hans made headlines and was the main topic of discussion at dinner parties throughout Europe. Whatever their sus- picions, it was obvious to all, Hans was a very smart horse.
Com- pared to other horses, Hans was a Somebody. Cut to today. Why is it when you talk with certain individu- als you just know they are smarter than other people—that they are a Somebody? Nevertheless, everybody knows. The day of the big test arrived. They were going to bar von Osten from the hall and put his horse to the test all alone.
When the crowd was assembled, they told von Osten he must leave the auditorium. The surprised owner departed, and Hans was stranded in an auditorium with a suspicious and anxious audience.
He tapped out the right answer! A second. He got it right! Then a third. Then the language questions followed. He got them all right! The commission was befuddled. The critics were silenced. With a great outcry, they insisted on a new commission. Commission number two started the enquiry perfunctorily with a simple addition prob- lem.
Everyone expected Hans to quickly tap out the sum. But Hans remained dumb! The researchers revealed the truth to the waiting world. Can you guess what that was? Now can you guess? When Hans started tapping the answer to a question, the audience would show sub- tle signs of tension. Then, when Hans reached the right number, they responded by an expulsion of breath or slight relaxation of muscles.
Von Osten had trained Hans to stop tapping at that point and therefore appear to give the right answer. Someone asks you to hit the mute button on the television so they can talk. You see performers smiling, scowling, smirking, squinting, and scores of other expressions. Are they nodding? Are their palms up? Are they frowning? Are they looking away? Are their knuck- les clenched?
Are they rubbing their necks? Are they stepping back? Are their feet pointing toward the door? Maybe they want to get away. When they feel superior to you, they steeple their hands. For the moment, all you need to do is tune to the silent channel being broadcast by the speaker. Then plan your moves accordingly. If a horse can do it, so can a human. People will say you pick up on everything. You never miss a trick. The athlete at the top of the piste, every muscle primed and poised, waiting for the gun to propel him to ultimate victory.
The athlete is visualizing. All athletes do it: divers, runners, jumpers, javelin throwers, lugers, swimmers, skaters, acrobats. They visualize their magic before performing it. They hear the sound of the wind, the splash in the water, the whirr of the javelin, the thud of its landing. They smell the grass, the cement, the pool, the dust.
Before they move a muscle, professional athletes watch the whole movie, which, of course, ends in their own victory. Sports psychologists tell us visualization is not just for top- level competitive athletes. Studies show mental rehearsal helps weekend athletes sharpen their golf, their tennis, their running, whatever their favorite activity.
Experts agree if you see the pic- tures, hear the sounds, and feel the movements of your body in your mind before you do the activity, the effect is powerful. Absolutely not! My friend Richard runs marathons. He was not badly injured. Nevertheless, his friends felt sorry for him because being laid up two weeks in bed would, naturally, knock him out of the big event.
What a surprise when, on that crisp November marathon morning in Central Park, Richard showed up in his little shorts and big running shoes. Every day. Twenty-six miles, yards, right there on my mattress. He saw the sights, heard the sounds, and felt the twitching movements in his mus- cles. He visualized himself racing in the marathon. Visualization works best when you feel totally relaxed.
Only when you have a calm state of mind can you get clear, vivid images. Do your visualization in the quiet of your home or car before leaving for the party, the convention, or the big-deal meet- ing. You now have the skills necessary to get you started on the right foot with any new person in your life. HEAR your- self chatting comfortably with everyone. FEEL the pleasure of knowing you are in peak form and everyone is gravitating toward you. Then it all happens automatically.
When the folks at Cape Kennedy aim a spacecraft for the moon, a mistake in the millionth of a degree at the beginning, when the craft is still on the ground, means missing the moon by thousands of miles.
Like- wise, a tiny body-language blooper at the outset of a relationship may mean you will never make a hit with that person. We now move from the silent world to the spoken word. Small talk! Can you hear the shudder? Those two little words drive a stake into the hearts of some otherwise fearless and undaunted souls.
If this sounds familiar, take consolation from the fact that the brighter the individual, the more he or she detests small talk. When consulting for Fortune companies, I was astounded. Top executives, completely comfortable making big talk with their boards of directors or addressing their stockholders, confessed they felt like little lost children at parties where the pratter was less than prodigious.
Small-talk haters take further consolation from the fact that you are in star-studded company. Fear of small talk and stage fright are the same thing. Pablo Casals complained of lifelong stage fright. Carly Simon curtailed live performances because of it. Is Small-Talk-a-Phobia Curable? Someday, scientists say, communications fears may be treatable with drugs. But some fear disastrous side effects. If fear and distaste of small talk is the disease, knowing solid tech- niques like the ones we explore in this section is the cure.
In our brains, neurons communicate through chemicals called neurotransmitters. Some people have excessive levels of a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine, a chemical cousin of adrenaline.
For some children, just walking into a kinder- garten room makes them want to run and hide under a table. As a tot, I spent a lot of time under the table. As a preteen in an all-girls boarding school, my legs turned to linguine every time I had to converse with a male. In eighth grade, I once had to invite a boy to our school prom.
The entire selection of dancing males lived in the dormitory of our brother school. And I only knew one resident, Eugene. I had met Eugene at summer camp the year before. Mustering all my courage, I decided to call him. Two weeks before the dance, I felt the onset of sweaty palms. I put the call off. One week before, rapid heartbeat set in.
Time was running out. The critical moment, I rationalized, would be easier if I read from a script. We met at camp last summer. I picked up the receiver and dialed.
Clutching the phone waiting for Eugene to answer, my eyes followed perspira- tion droplets rolling down my arm and dripping off my elbow. A small salty puddle was forming around my feet. We-met-at-camp—last- summer-remember? Will that go with your dress? And my name is Donnie. Who said anything about Donnie? Well, Donnie turned out to be the best date I had that decade. Donnie had buckteeth, a head full of tousled red hair, and com- munications skills that immediately put me at ease.
On Saturday night, Donnie greeted me at the door, carnation in hand and grin on face. He joked self-deprecatingly about how he was dying to go to the prom so, knowing it was a case of mis- taken identity, he accepted anyway. First we made small talk and then he gradually led me into subjects I was interested in. Donnie instinctively had the small-talk skills that we are now going to fashion into techniques to help you glide through small talk like a hot knife through butter.
When you master them, you will be able—like Donnie—to melt the heart of everyone you touch. The goal of How to Talk to Anyone is not, of course, to make you a small-talk whiz and stop there. The aim is to make you a dynamic conversationalist and forceful communicator. You shake hands, your eyes meet.
Failing, your new contact slips away in the direction of the cheese tray. We want our listeners to immediately rec- ognize how riveting we are. I was once at a gathering where every- body was sparkling, witty, insightful, and riveting. Their cocktail party was in full swing in the lobby of the hotel as I arrived. After checking in, I hauled my bags through the hoard of happy-hour Mensans to the elevator.
The doors separated and I stepped into an elevator packed with party goers. Suddenly I felt like a grasshop- per trapped in a stereo speaker. Why then did I have an adverse reaction? I realized it was too much, too soon.
I was tired. Their high energy and intensity jarred my sluggish state. You see, small talk is not about facts or words. Small talk is about putting people at ease. And friendships might have started. Have you ever been relaxing when some overexcited, hot-breathed colleague starts pounding you with questions?
When it comes to small talk, think music, not words. Is your lis- tener adagio or allegro? Match that pace. Some years ago, I decided to throw a surprise party for my best friend Stella. It was going to be a triple-whammy party because she was cele- brating three events. Two, she was newly engaged. And three, Stella had just landed her dream job. I had heard one of the best French restaurants in town had an attractive back room for parties. About 5 p. You can go zee eet eef you like.
What a party pooper! His morose mood kicked all the party spirit out of me, and I no longer wanted to rent his stu- pid space. Before I even looked at the room, he lost the rental. Every mother knows this instinctively. Your listeners are all big babies! If you ever want to bring people around to your thoughts, you must match their mood and voice tone, if only for a moment. Once while at a party, I spotted a fellow surrounded by a fan club of avid listeners. The chap was smiling, gesticulating, and obvi- ously enthralling his audience.
I went over to hearken to this fas- cinating speaker. I joined his throng of admirers and eavesdropped for a minute or two. Suddenly, it dawned on me: the fellow was saying the most banal things! His script was dull, dull, dull. Ah, but he was delivering his prosaic observations with such passion, and therefore, he held the group spellbound.
Dottie often stayed at her desk to work through lunch. Bologna on whole wheat, hold the mayo? How do you put people at ease? By convincing them they are OK and that the two of you are similar. When you do that, you break down walls of fear, suspicion, and mistrust. Hayakawa was a college president, U.
He noticed others waiting in the station were staring at him suspiciously. Because of the war, they were apprehensive about his presence.
He made unoriginal remarks to set them at ease. He said to the husband that it was too bad the train should be late on so cold a night. The man agreed. Again the husband agreed. Again agreement, this time with a slight smile.
The tension was relaxing. Do you think the Japs have any chance of winning this war? Hundreds of radio commentators. But just because they were, the remark sounded familiar and was on the right side so that it was easy to agree with.
Both the man and his wife looked troubled and sympathetic. Hayakawa delivered his sentiments with sin- cerity and passion. Ascent from Banality It is not necessary, of course, to stay with mundane remarks. The conversation then escalates naturally, compatibly.
Because, remember, people tune in to your tone more than your text. No matter how prosaic the text, an empathetic mood, a positive demeanor, and passionate delivery make you sound exciting. You could be the happiest Pollyanna ever, but how will they know? Open and shut. Other than these downers, anything goes. The trick is to ask your prosaic question with passion to get the other person talking. Still feel a bit shaky on making the approach to strangers? A Whatzit is anything you wear or carry that is unusual—a unique pin, an interesting purse, a strange tie, or an amusing hat.
I wear around my neck an outmoded pair of glasses that resem- bles a double monocle. Perhaps, unknowingly, you have fallen prey to this soon-to- be-legendary technique. At a gathering, have you ever noticed 56 Copyright by Leil Lowndes. What a bounty it was to discover that he or she was wearing some weird, wild, or won- derful something you could comment on. The Whatzit Way to Love Your Whatzit is a social aid whether you seek business rewards or new romance.
My friend Alexander carries Greek worry beads with him wherever he goes. An attractive woman spots you across the room. But, golly, what can I say to you? The big spender who, you suspect, might buy a hundred of your widgets has a tiny golf-club lapel pin? Are you a golfer? Me, too. What courses have you played?
Whether you are riding in the elevator, climbing the doorstep, or traversing the path to the party, make sure your Whatzit is hanging out for all to see. If, however, you are loath to pull the party giver away from his or her other guests, you still can perform Whoozat.
Simply pump the party giver for just enough information to launch you. Now you make a beeline for Joe Smith. Susan was just telling me what a great skier you are.
Where do you ski? Simply ask the party giver to make the introduction, or pump for a few facts that you can immediately turn into icebreakers. Now the third in our little trio of meeting-who-you-want tricks. Eavesdropping, of course, conjures images of clandestine activities—wiretapping, Watergate break- ins, or spies skulking around in the murky shadows.
Eavesdrop- ping has historical precedent with politicians so, in a pinch, it naturally comes to mind. Then wait for a word or two you can use as a wedge to break into the group. Any suggestions? No host for Whoozat? No problem! Will they get over it? Will you be in the conversation? Then they slap on the muzzle. Give the hun- gry communicator something to conversationally nibble on. All it takes is an extra sentence or two about your city—some interesting fact, some witty observation—to hook the asker into the conversation.
Several months ago, a trade association invited me to be its keynote speaker on networking and teaching people to be better conversationalists. Just before my speech, I was introduced to Mrs. Devlin, who was the head of the association. Then Mrs.
Devlin smiled, anxiously awaiting a sample of my stimulating conversational expertise. I asked her where she was from. I had to quickly thaw her answer into digestible conversation.
My mind thrashed into action. Crim- iny, what do I know about Columbus? I know a fellow named Jeff, a successful speaker who lives there. But Columbus is too big to ask if she knows him. I realized by now that seconds had passed, and Mrs. Devlin was still standing there with a slowly dissipating smile on her face.
But, just then, under the knife, I created the following technique for posterity. Learn some engaging facts about your hometown that conversational partners can comment on.
And you will obviously throw out different conversational bait to snag sim- ple shrimp or sophisticated sharks. The reason I left is there were seven women to every man when I was growing up. No need to speculate on the multitude of conversational possibilities that unlocks. Where do you get your conversational bait? Start by phoning the chamber of commerce or historical society of your town.
Search the World Wide Web and click on your town, or open an old-fashioned encyclopedia—all rich sources for future stimulat- ing conversations. The Devlin debacle inspired further research. The minute I got home, I called the Columbus chamber of commerce and the historical society.
Talking with an American history buff? Tell him that Colum- bus was, indeed, named after Christopher Columbus and that a replica of the Santa Maria is anchored in the Scioto River. But not every device can play the same formats. So if you're going to be streaming to one of those, you should look for files that work on whatever you're going to be using.
Likewise, if you've only got a p TV, or a similar resolution on the monitor you will be using, there's no sense downloading that p file, is there? If you absolutely can't find the right format, there are free programs—like the beloved Handbrake —that will let you convert the file to what you need. But unless you've got a monster machine, you're going to spend more time encoding the video than you will watching it, and you're probably losing some resolution in the bargain, too.
For larger files, you might encounter multi-part downloads. Most of the time that's going to mean a multi-part RAR file. On Windows, you can use the WinZip utility.
As an alternative to direct download, you can go the private torrent community route. We talked a little bit about closed communities in the software edition, but with media, the communities are a little more specific.
Like, say, if you're only interested in movie torrents, you might want to get into a community that specializes in nothing but movies. Movies: passthepopcorn. The downside to wonderful content selection and well-seeded torrents is, of course, the need to maintain a good ratio. What does that mean? You've got to upload just as much as you download, or close to it, if you don't want to get kicked out. In addition to stressing your home network while you try to do other stuff, this also increases the chance that your ISP will come knocking.
So it's a tradeoff: less work to get your content, but much more work and risk to keep your source running. It ain't easy to get into these communities, but if you hassle your nerdier friends, you'll probably be able to turn up an invite, or at least a lead on one. And even though one of our rules for general torrenting is "Don't Seed," you better seed your ass off once you're in, or you won't be in there for long.
Books get their own header, here, because they are a little different than the other formats. Well, they are not uploaded with as much aplomb, for one. So while just about every movie ever filmed can be downloaded somewhere, there are no ebook copies of a lot of books. And the ones that are out there are often not up for download. It's true: No one reads anymore. Especially pirates, it seems. You won't find many books on the direct download sites, but there are tons of torrent packs—every Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction, for example—and the good news is that book files are super light.
So, if you want to reproduce every book on your bookshelf on your Kindle, it won't take much time to download them at all, if you can find them. Then you've just got to get them on your reader. That's the easy part. Calibre is an ebook sorting app that also doubles as a Kindle-cracking hack machine. What makes it so great? It converts any ebook, no matter its format, into formats any ereader can use.
For example, the Kindle is the most locked-down ereader. Have you ever heard of Usenet? Maybe in passing, but chances are you've never sunk your teeth into it.
Basically, it's a group of decentralized servers that host content. And a lot of it's pirated content. Here's our explainer on Usenet from a few years ago. It remains a mostly unmonitored, hyperspeed playground with early access to downloads and content. It also remains an esoteric horror show for the average user. Unlike the other methods, you do have to spend some cash. Clients are free, but access to a service—think subscribing to Rapidshare, only if Rapidshare had access to what was uploaded to every direct download site—that'll cost you.
Then you'll also have to track down a service to search through files called NZBs—basically, the index of what's actually out there. Yeah, there are legitimate reasons to download things illegally. But the more common case is just a lazy sense of entitlement. While we support you rising up and saying, "Hey, I already bought this damn movie—three times!
This is an outstanding offering, for several different reasons, first and foremost being the sheer volume and quality of items described and taught. Between the 3 disks there are 7 hours of magic, with 38 tricks and 33 moves presented.
What makes this quantity truly amazing is that there is little filler. This is not surprising, given that Mr. Jay had hundreds of items from countless performers to choose from. And while a number of the items are what you would expect to find in a trick column in a magazine yet ANOTHER version of Triumph and Spectator Cuts the Aces , even these versions have much to commend them, offering food for thought at the very least.
The explanations are very solid and thorough, and I commend the fact that many of the inventors were brought on board for the production.
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