Book Review: How to Talk to Anyone
I just finished reading How to Talk to Anyone - 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships by Leil Lowndes. This is a fantastic book that teaches one how to approach business networking as both a science and an art. This book has some true gems when it comes to what to say and do in work, business, and other social settings. The author Leil Lowndes clearly has years of experience when it comes to wielding a strong social game and she has great wisdom. I’ve been to countless meetups, conferences, talks, company events, and business soirées in the past 10 years and thought of myself as a strong networker. I realized from reading this book that there’s another level and I’ve gained new insights that I never thought of before. I’ve gained new ideas and new things to try out next time and I believe these new skills will take my networking abilities to the next level. What I appreciated most about this book is that it’s very practical in nature. A lot of the ideas you can implement right away. Therefore, I’m going to share the five tricks that I found most insightful from a truly excellent book!
The Swivelling Spotlight: When you meet someone, imagine a giant revolving spotlight between you. When you’re talking, the spotlight is on you. When the new person is speaking, it’s shining on him or her. If you shine it brightly enough, the stranger will be blinded to the fact that you have hardly said a word about yourself. The longer you keep it shining away from you, the more interesting he or she finds you.
This is by far the biggest insight from the whole book. It’s common sense and easy to understand theoretically, but so hard to implement in real life. When we meet people, we often want to talk and let others know about our brilliance: how smart we are, how accomplished we are, how excellent we are, etc. But the Swivelling Spotlight technique tells us that to truly intrigue someone, you have to focus the attention on THEM. Start listening first, have the other person talk as long as they want, and then start talking yourself last. That’s how you truly intrigue a new acquaintance that you just met at the party!
The Premature We: Create the sensation of intimacy with someone even if you’ve met just moments before. Scramble the signals in their psyche by skipping conversational levels one and two and cutting right to levels three and four. Elicit intimate feelings by using the magic words we, us, and our.
This is a super interesting technique that I never thought of before. To bring someone closer into your fold, even if you don’t know them that well, communicate using the word we. This eliminates the belief that it’s you vs. me. I have never thought about things this way before, but it makes total sense! Just by using the word we, it builds camaraderie, closeness, and takes the relationship to a whole new level. Instead of making just a new acquaintance, the premature we gives you a chance to turn the new contact into an actual friend. We should go to a party sometime. We should get coffee sometime. We should go play soccer. It’s a really brilliant trick.
Little Strokes: Don’t make your colleagues, your friends, your loved ones look at you and silently say, “Haven’t I been pretty good today?” Let them know how much you appreciate them by caressing them with verbal Little Strokes like “Nice job!” “Well done!” “Cool!”
I love this technique and it’s something that I try to do! People love to be around other optimistic people and Little Strokes is optimism in action. Encourage and give people confidence by giving them positive reinforcement, always. Give them the encouragement to face whatever challenges or problems they are facing. Even if they are not facing any big challenges, always say things that uplift people and make them feel good. Not everyone has strong confidence, so it’s a duty for people that do have strong confidence to build up other peoples’ confidence. You never know who you could inspire!
Be The Chooser, Not the Choosee: … Do not stand around waiting for the moment when that special person approaches you. You make it happen by exploring every face in the room. No more “ships passing in the night.” Capture whatever or whomever you want in your life.
This technique is much harder to implement in real life than it is to understand theoretically. We’ve all experienced situations where we’re at a party or networking event and there’s someone that intrigues us. We want to go up and talk to them, but they are in a group or we feel intimidated to take action. Well in this type of situation, you have to be the chooser and not the choosee. You have to go up to the person and strike up a conversation. It’s not easy, but it gets easier and more natural the more you practice. That’s why I say: keep taking chances. Why not? You get better results and stronger each chance that you take, success or fail!
Parrotting: Never be left speechless again. Like a parrot, simply repeat the last few words your conversation partner says. That puts the ball right back in his or her court, and then all you need to do is listen.
This is a fantastic technique whenever you are in a conversation and unsure of what to say next. Simply parrot the last thing that was said. This way, the conversation does not die and keeps going. This trick together with the Swiveling Spotlight can be potent when the two techniques are combined together. Simply keep the spotlight on the other party out of respect and use parroting to let them speak out of respect. Then when it’s your turn to speak, the other party feels good after having said all that he or she wanted to say. This is how conversations and dialogues should go! This is good, clear, and strong communication in action.
Thank you for reading and I hope you learned something. :)