Introduction
How to Talk with Anyone is a psychology-backed book that offers guidance on effective communication. Lowndes covers a wide range of communication types, broken down into verbal and nonverbal, across almost every possible context. Your approach should adapt depending on whom you are talking to and the specific context. So, How to Talk to Anyone offers guidance on how you can become a master communicator. As a master communicator, you can connect with others irrespective of the environment.
Using Your Smile and Your Eyes for First Impressions, 80% of first impressions are the way you look and move. In fact, studies suggest that emotional reactions occur in our brains before we even have time to register a reaction to somebody. So, try to utilize Leil Lowndes’ tips to intrigue everyone through your first impressions.
Lowndes advises against quick smiles. If you interact with somebody, you should start by looking at their face for a second and pausing. This pause will let you soak in their persona. You should then let out a big warm smile that floods across your face. Allow this flood to overflow into smiling with your eyes. While engaging with the flooding smile, you should also try to maintain eye contact. Others will respect you more if you maintain strong eye contact. Specifically, this ability is associated with intelligence and abstract thinking.
How to Excel at Small Talk
Try not to worry too much about what you are saying, but attempt to match the mood of the audience. The easiest, broader approach to take is simply ensuring your words will put people at ease. Doing this will help make you sound passionate.
As long as your words are putting the audience at ease, you can focus more on the tone of what you are saying. 80% of your communication has nothing to do with your choice of words.
When introducing people, you should always offer an exciting point for the conversation to flow from. Offering an unbaited hook when starting a conversation will only lead to awkwardness. A word detective can identify their conversation partner’s preferred topic by listening to every word said. You will become more appealing in others’ minds if you learn how to keep the spotlight shining on them.
How to Start a Conversation
Lowndes suggests always wearing or carrying something slightly unusual. Possessing these objects will immediately draw other people’s attention towards you. Try to also make small talk by commenting on other people’s attire.
Asking people you know to make introductions with other people can immediately provide an
icebreaker. Eavesdropping in group contexts is not rude. It shows curiosity. So, don’t be scared to eavesdrop on other conversations and say something like ‘Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear.
If somebody asks you where you are from, you should always avoid giving them a one-word answer. Use this as an opportunity to describe interesting parts of your life. You should always avoid one-word answers when somebody asks what you do for work. Embellish your answer with fascinating facts about your role, company, or job history.
You Like to Read: Embracing the present: The power of now by Eckhart Tolle
Conversations on Jobs
Lowndes believes you should never be asking the question, “What do you do?” You should be
asking others how they spend most of their time instead. If you are asked what you do, you
should try to avoid using the same stories about your personal life across conversations. Build
up a bank of true stories that roll off your tongue.
How to Make Others Feel Special
A common mistake is immediately agreeing with another person. Instead of jumping in with “me too,” you should wait and listen. So, the other person will be influenced more if you wait to agree.
Wherever possible, start sentences with the word “you”. Starting conversations with this word will immediately grab your listeners’ attention. If you are meeting a group of people, you should greet each person with a distinct smile rather than smiling at a group.
Challenging Conversation Topics
Never, ever, make a joke at anyone else’s expense. You may get some cheap laughs in the short term. But, you will pay for this joke in the long run. You should always consider the receiver of your news before throwing it out there. Ensure you deliver any news with appropriate emotions.
Whenever someone persists in questioning you on an unwelcome subject, simply repeat your original response. Use precisely the same words in precisely the same tone of voice. Hearing it again usually quiets them down.
How to Sound Knowledgeable
Lowndes describes gobbledygook as the language of other professions. Learn a minimal amount of information about a wide range of topics so you can sound like an insider. The most effective way of doing this is finding an insider to teach you some lingo. As well as learning some of the jargon within a profession, you must also identify the hot issues within a field. Every industry has burning concerns that only specialists will know about. Learn these hot issues, and you become infinitely more interesting. Read magazines pertaining to the industry you will be encountering to learn insider news.
How to Make Them Feel Like You Are Similar
Try to copy the movement styles of people you are engaging with. Doing so will make them feel more comfortable and receptive. Match your personality to your product. Echoing is a simple and powerful linguistic technique that can make you feel like family. Hearing their words come out of your mouth creates subliminal rapport.
Lowndes believes you can create a sensation of intimacy with someone even moments after having met them. The most effective way of doing this is skipping conversation levels 1 and 2 and going straight to the more intimate conversations. If you want to make a stranger less of a stranger, try to identify a remarkable moment you shared during your first encounter.
How to Bring Good Vibes
Offer praise to people when they are not even in a conversation. If they find out you have been complimenting them behind their back, this means a lot more than flattery to someone’s face.
Become someone who carries good news. So, if somebody compliments another person, you should try to be the person who lets the complimented person know. Throw a few comments
into your conversation that presupposes something positive about the person you’re talking with.
Use Verbal Strokes and Compliments
Try to become a stealthy praiser. Do not make all your compliments obvious by hiding them in
the middle of sentences. These types of praise are often perceived as more genuine.
The alternative is the killer compliment. Use these sparingly as they can be intense. Identify one specific quality, look them in the eye, say their name, and deliver the compliment. The author also provides several killer compliment rules:
- Deliver it in private
- Make your killer compliment credible
- Confer only one killer compliment every 6 months
How to Create a Powerful Voicemail
The best way to impress others with your outgoing voicemail message is to change it daily. Create a daily voicemail message that is reliable, short, professional, and friendly. Any imperfections are fine as they show you are down to earth. Pretend the tone at the start of a voicemail is your call to step on stage for an audition. A voicemail gives you roughly ten seconds to win the other person over.
Great post. I am facing a couple of these problems.