Transcripts
1. Introduction: So starting conversations is one of life's superpowers. I find that when people are skilled in the first 30 seconds or so of a conversation, they are going to meet exponentially more people over the course of their lives. And they're going to have an incredible number of opportunities relative to people who don't have these opportunities ranged from romantic ones like meeting the person of your dreams to career opportunities like landing the job you've always wanted, and it's all possible and dare I say inevitable. Once you learn how to start a conversation like a pro, the best part about all of this is that it's really not that hard. It takes maybe an hour of learning and another couple of hours of practice. And once you're at that point, you are literally going to be better at starting conversations. And 99 percent of the rest of the world, Hey, my name is Nick. I'm a software developer and I also run a successful YouTube channel, blog and a video production company. I've been studying and learning how to meet people for the better part of the last 10 years. And because the recent, both social and cultural and I guess health events, a lot of people have had trouble meeting other people. In the 2021, I coach her body language and vocal tone and dozens of people in my sessions of an asked me to make it impactful and very high-value course and how to start conversations with strangers. This is the result. This class is going to teach you everything there is to know about how to start a conversation, because I don't want to learn how to make a fantastic first impression. You're going to learn the mindset behind social people and how social people operate. You'll learn how to never come across as creepy or weird, how to make people like you. And nine exceptional conversation starters that you guys can use every day to meet tons of people. They're literally just copy and paste. So if you guys want to improve your careers, your relationships, and your confidence, this is the course for you. If you finish, I promise you will never enter a social situation the same way ever again. Let's jump right in and I will see you in the first video.
2. Why Learn How to Start Conversations?: So starting conversations is unfortunately a dying art. 50 or 60 years ago it was completely normal to see somebody interesting, say hello and maybe make a connection that you'd carry on with you for the rest of your life. But today, starting conversations with strangers is a certain social stigma, I want to say that is attached to it. Part of it is obviously a recent events related to health, but a much bigger part of it is the people I find it becomes significantly more sensitive over the last few years to the concept of what I'm going to be calling social shame and social failure. Now, social failure is basically when somebody else sees you fail at something. We become so accustomed to the idea of perfect because we're constantly inundated by people on TV and on social media that have that perfection. Our own bar of failure is a lot higher right now than it ever was before. Because of this increased sensitivity to social failure, significantly fewer people are willing to risk their image these days and a lot of the time you'll end up wanting to start a conversation with somebody. But all of these possible consequences run through your head. Like, what if they think I'm weird? What if somebody overhears me? What if I say the wrong thing and so on and so on and so forth, and you end up not doing it. You get caught up in your own head with technology, it's also a lot easier to rationalize. Well, there's no point in the meeting this person right now, maybe I'll run into them on Facebook or Tinder or something like that. But the unfortunate result of all of this is that most people have lost a significant amount of opportunity and mobility in their lives. And this is important. One of the main reasons why knowing how to start a conversation with a stranger is such a great thing, is it meeting people is literally the number one way to improve your station in life. Pretty much every major real problem in a person's life can be solved or at least helped by meeting more people. For example, do you not have the kinds of romantic relationships you want? Maybe your significant other just really isn't doing it for yeah. Or you want somebody else? Well, if you want to improve that outcome, the number one solution to that is literally just to meet more people. More people means more romantic opportunities and a higher likelihood that you are going to end up connecting much better with potentially one of the people of your dreams. Another example might be do not have the kinds of career prospects that you want. Maybe you want more money in your career and less work. Well, this is going to be news to some people unfortunately, but the vast majority of high-paying jobs are not one cold off of a first contact resume or email. They are one through warm connections. It's friends, it's family members, acquaintances, and so on. Maybe your friend's cousin is hiring for a lucrative copywriting position while because now you're friends with them, you're gonna get the first crack at it. Or maybe your friend of a friend is willing to make an introduction to the new hedge fund manager. Now obviously I hate to say it, but people that are ahead of you Career-wise, almost all the time are ahead of you not because they are innately just better than you and everything, but it's because they just had one or two more contacts on top of you. And that's reality. I could go on and on. But really most situations in your life are going to be improved by having a wider social network. Not to mention, it can be really fun. I mean, one of the most amazing social experiences I've ever had in my life has come as a result of random meetings and acquaintances. They weren't random in the sense that we just happened to randomly meet the universe, just hand-delivered them to me on a silver platter. I to improve myself and my ability to start conversations. But knowledge of the skills I'm about to show you guys have allowed me to take advantage of these opportunities that were already there. And this skill is going to do the exact same thing for you. And a lot of people that are hearing this right now are thinking, well, I'm an introvert. I don't really like meeting people and I completely understand where you're coming from. I sell them highly introverted as well. And meeting people to me can be really annoying at like the best of times and tedious at the worst of times. But the reason why learning how to start a conversation is still one of the most important things to do is because if you're prepared for these interactions, not only are they going to go smoother and be more enjoyable and inevitably do happen, but they'll also be shorter. You can get done with them significantly faster. Another big reason why this is so important is called the network effect. Now, the network effect in this case basically means that meeting one person now it gives you access to their entire tree of friends and career opportunities. When you meet that one person, you're not just meeting them, you're improving your relationship and career prospects by turning, let's say, 500 people that previously were completely cold to you now into warm opportunities, your friends of friends, it also increases your confidence how many times we wanted to talk to somebody, maybe at the cafe or the bar. But you're unable to because your fear of failure or you didn't know what to say. I don't know about you, but when I'm in that situation and then I end up chicken and outs or rationalizing some reason not to talk to them because of my own lack of confidence. It does not make me feel good about myself. But at the end of the day, when you know how to start conversations like a pro, you're significantly more likely to take advantage of opportunities like that, which will not only allow you to connect with that person, but it's going to improve the likelihood of you taken advantage of the next opportunity. And it's going to catapult you into this tumbling, vicious cycle of self-improvement. And probably the last reason that you should learn how to start conversations as you are now fulfilling a need. Most people out there are like you in that example of the cafe back there. They want to improve their network, but they're scared to take the first step. They think they're going to be awkward. Their head starts playing tricks on them and so on and so forth. So if you can take the initiative and bridge the gap and make that first contact, the other people will both be highly grateful and more likely to help you later on with your own life, you fulfilling that market need, especially right now if distancing and stuff like that is going to make you a very valuable person. Alright, so to recap, learning how to start conversations is incredibly useful. Pretty much every life problem you have has a solution that can be boiled down to get more friends, get more people in your network. On top of that, it lets you take advantage of the network effects. So just by taking a few seconds, I'd your data meet somebody and now you have access to all of the social capital and all of the social connections that that person has, which obviously it can be a tremendously valuable asset. It also makes you more confident. It'll make you feel better about yourself the next time you can actually take that initiative and take advantage of that opportunity to start a conversation. And lastly, meeting people fulfills a social need, right? It turns you from just a regular Joe into a valuable commodity in the marketplace. And we'll be talking a little bit more about that in a second.
3. Technology & Meeting People: So I'm going to cover how to introduce yourself in the next video. But in this video I want to talk a little bit about technology. Now, technology is obviously a great way to meet people. It is quick and simple and it can significantly improve the quantity of the conversations that you're having. The problem with that is it rarely improves the quality of those conversations and that can have a big impact on people that only meet others using technology. So what do I mean? Well, at the single tweet or a single post and a Facebook group, you are effectively introducing yourself to hundreds of people simultaneously. So a lot of people have asked me, Well, Nick, It's that easy to meet people on social media. Why don't you just do that all the time and don't get me wrong. Obviously, there's a lot of genuine value in extending that olive branch in social media and using it. I personally met thousands of people on social media. I use it every single day. But that said there are two very big problems. Now. The first is an economic problem. Even though I've met thousands of people through social media to this day, I probably only communicate with maybe three or four. The retention rate of the people you meet on social media is going to necessarily be a lot lower, basically for every person that you meet. Over social media versus real life, you might be like 200 or 300 times less likely to click with that person and take your relationship to the next level. This can obviously make it incredibly time-consuming and very impractical, especially we don't have a strong follower base or a friend base to begin with. So from that utility perspective, you guys are looking to build your network that can make it pretty hard. I would say significantly harder than just going out for an hour a day and meeting like-minded people through a face-to-face conversation, which I will tell you how to do so in the next video, there is a way to improve your attention, right? That I do want to share with you right before. And this though, and that is this transitioning from social media to real-life as quickly as possible? If you guys were to meet somebody on LinkedIn or let's say Facebook and you think you have a decent chance of clicking, I would recommend you try and get them off platform asap, propose a coffee or a walk and see how they react and if they end up meeting up with you, your chances of building a genuine relationship with that person and being able to work with them in some capacity, whether it's relationships or career, will be much higher. But anyway, that's one problem with social media. That's the economic side of things. The second big problem is the social skill side. Social media is a very poor crutch for communication skills. If you guys were to rewind the clock and go 50 years ago when we had no internet, no social media, no cell phones and nothing. And you were to start a conversation with an average person on the street, you would be incredibly surprised that how expressive they were, how strong they were at orally communicating and so on. And this is because oral communication was necessary back then to have a good life. You talk to people face to face all the time for pretty much everything. So you were obviously forced to develop those skills out of necessity. Nowadays, you don't need to develop the skills anymore. You can order groceries through your phone or a setup relationships with online dating apps, right? You don't need to talk anymore for the vast majority of interactions. And that ratio is only growing with time. So just like your muscles if you guys go to the gym, if you don't go to the gym for a while, your social skills are going to deteriorate. And when your social skills deteriorate, you guys, you're usually going to have a loss of confidence side-by-side that because human beings are naturally social animals and a lot of us dictate our self-worth based on our social successes. No matter how hard we try to prevent this, people that succeed socially usually almost always feel better about themselves and people that don't. And technology can only really emulate a very small fraction of that feeling through likes and engagement and so on and so forth. So that's problem number 2, it hurts your social skills. Now, as I said previously, my goal is not to make you abandon social media entirely. I think it's a very powerful tool, but remember that it's just that it's a tool. It's not supposed to be running your life completely. You're supposed to be running it. And that's especially true in terms of your social life. You guys are finding yourself spending more time on social media than actually going out and meeting people in real life, you need to ask yourself a couple of serious questions. Like, are you happy with that? Do you think that the quality of your relationships could be better? Are you settling for this because of some other deep-seated fear, maybe the fear of failure, of social failure for meeting people in person. Your answers, any of those questions or anything else than a resounding null, then I encourage you to soak up as much as possible from the next few videos and use that knowledge to help improve your social outcomes outside of technology and outside of social media. To recap, technology is fantastic, but he does have a few drawbacks when it comes to your social life. To be specific, it improves the quantity of your social interactions, so the number, but it reduces the quality of your interactions, the experience. And there are two big problems with that. The first is an economic problem. It's much harder to build a strong network on posts and likes alone. Lot of the numbers that you are seeing may not necessarily translate to real-life connections. And the second problem is the social skills problem. I find a lot of people use social media as a crutch rather than just do the hard work of improving their social skills. So inevitably their social skills deteriorate, and this obviously has a big impact and their conception of self worth. Remember that social media is a tool and you are meant to use it, not the other way around. See you in the next video.
4. Nailing The First Impression: Now the first impression is the most important part of any conversation. A great first impression is going to dictate whether you guys are perceived as warm and friendly or as weird and creepy. And it only lasts about 20 or 30 seconds, which is either a relief for you or it's a crap load of pressure. It's a relief because obviously it means is over with quickly and it's a crap load of pressure because it means that every second counts and if you screw up a couple of seconds in a row, you're probably headed in the weird and creepy direction more often than not. So interestingly enough, good first impressions are actually less based on what you say, and the more based on the way that you say it, nonverbal communication makes up about 50 percent of how you are perceived. That's your body language, your voice, and your appearance during a first impression though, and the other person has no clue who you are or what you're about. I'll dare to say that if non-verbal communication probably makes us more like 80 or 90 percent of how you're perceived. So it's a very big deal and it's important that you get that right on the first approach, of course, what you say is important too. I'm going to be showing you nine exceptional openers later on that you guys can use them literally any situation. But you do need to be aware of how you look and sound while you're saying those things. Because that's really important as well. No amount of skilled wordplay and on out of Shakespeare class can help if you're labeled as weird and creepy. It's almost like trying to use martial arts or Judo against the machine you're on, you're just not going to win that fight. I should also mention that the whole idea of weird and creepy is really just a misalignment problem between your actions and your words. Because if you're starting a conversation with somebody that implies that you are very confident. But if your body language and your voice seem really unconfident, there's a mismatch there, your actions so you're confident, but your words say that you are super anxious, super stressed out, basically putting something on your faking something. And a lot of people that's considered creepy. So we're going to fix that the next few minutes. We'll start with body language. Now, I'm a body language coach because assume either body language videos, you know, I talk about this stuff a lot. Positive body language is composed of two main components, and those components are size and vulnerability. Size just means how big you can make your gestures and your body while you're moving around. A guy that sits like this all the time, it's going to be perceived as a lot less confident than a guy that leans back and sits like this all the time. Just because the amount of room that is taken up and the visual size of his body on the eye. That obviously doesn't mean you need to be walking around like this all day, right? In fact, please don't, but it does mean that you should be taking the opportunity to gain space wherever and whenever you can. You guys are sitting down, don't curl into a ball right on the space that you're given. If you guys are standing, keep your legs at least shoulder width apart when you are walking. A good rule of thumb is to not look like a robot. Confident people usually sway their hands a little bit and they sway their chest a little bit. They basically have a little bit of swagger. Vulnerability, on the other hand, means how safe your body language is making you pretend your air drops into a jungle with vicious predators write, a wild boar is just about to attack you. What kind of body language you think you're gonna make? Well, in order to optimize and maximize your safety, you're probably gonna want to cover up your vital areas, right? Your heart wants to be covered up your lungs and your underarms and so on. So you're going to adopt a closed-off posture like this. Now, even though we're not in a jungle with vicious predators anymore, other people's brains will still judge you as if you are. And if you adopt those closed off, very safe behaviors that make it look like you're always protecting herself. Other people instinctively think that you are less confident and potentially more weird because of it. So if you ever catch yourself covering areas of your body habitually when you're nervous, like crossing your hands or something like that, take your hands and put them on the sides of your waste. This is going to flare your elbows can make it seem a little bit more vulnerable because now your lungs and your underarms are open and ultimately it's going to make you look a lot more confident. Last thing you need to do is you need to smile. And this is a must across basically every interaction we are first introducing herself. There have been hundreds of studies. The consensus is full face smiles are the best. They're even better when you spread your smile across your face slowly. So instead of just smiling, you should go for a slow and genuine smile that takes a few seconds to max out. Okay, so that's body language is just size and vulnerability and smiling. If you guys just watch that part three or four times, you will get those down and you'll learn how to do this in any conversation. Whether you're sitting down at a cafe, you're waiting in lines somewhere, even if you guys are running across the street to say hello to somebody. Next up is your voice. Now most people have a beautiful, confident voice just waiting to come out. But their fears and their learned anxieties are preventing them from realizing that in order to be perceived as warm and as confident, you need to get to things down. The first is that you need to project your voice to a reasonable level of loudness. And the second is that you just need to speak in a measured, not super fast and not super slow pace. Best of all, you just need to be consistent. Most people speak too softly, but making yourself ladder is actually a lot easier than you might think. And I'm gonna show you in thirty-seconds. So your throat is basically like a wind instrument. You guys ever played? Clarinet or maybe two, but you'll know that the more air you blow through that wind instrument, the louder it becomes. So the first step to becoming louder is just by blowing more arrow while you're speaking. In order to blow more air out of your throat, you need to have more air in your lungs in the first place to blow out, right? This is where most people screw up and this is where proper breathing comes in. You've probably heard about this already. It's called belly breathing. Everybody has this giant band of muscle called the diaphragm that is located deep in your core that when activated, fully pulls an incredible amount of air into your lungs. But the question is, how do you activate it? Well, to do so, you need to breathe with your stomach and steady your lungs. And what that looks like is when you take a deep breath in, your belly will push out almost as if you look like you're a little bit pregnant. Once you breathe with your belly, you now have around twice as much air in your lungs as you did before. So the next time you say something, you can expel twice as much air as you would have. Otherwise, we're just going to make your voice significantly louder and a little bit more confident as well. That was projections. So basically deep breaths make louder voices. The second trick with your voice for strong first impressions is just to speak at a reasonable and measured pace. I find a lot of people when they're nervous or maybe a little anxious, speak really quickly like this. But this does a couple of things. It makes you sound less confident and it makes you sound less sure of yourself. And it also makes you a lot more likely to say things like because you're talking so fast that now your brain has to catch up to your mouth. There's no magic rule to improve this, but you do need to be aware of it. If this is a problem that you guys think you face and make sure that the next time you start a conversation, you just dial your speed back 10 or 20 percent. As a preventative measure. People that speak more slowly or perceived as more confident anyway. So the worst thing that can happen is that the other person is going to think that, hey, this guy really believes in what he's saying. He's really confident here. That's generally a positive trait. So that was your voice. It's just projection and speaking slowly if you guys can barely breathe and if you can slow down the speed at which you speak, you will naturally speak louder and speak more confidently. And the other party will be much more likely to consider that you are confident, warm, and friendly, definitely not creepy. The last aspect of nonverbal communication is your general appearance. Now this is obviously incredibly subjective and culturally specific, but you're going to want at the least to look hygienic. Poor hygiene is the number one contributing factor to a person's appearance being considered weird or creepy. So if you can take care of the hygiene aspect already been big leg up on a lot of the aspiring socialites out there that aren't, it's going to fix 95 percent of your appearance problems. Obviously, the more you exercise as well, generally, the more healthy you're going to look, you might have bigger, sexier muscles. All that fun stuff is going to get you better results. Aside from that, it's very context dependent. If you guys are at a nightclub, for example, the ideal appearance is probably going to be a little bit different than if you are at a bookstore or in the cafe. It's also worth mentioning of the person that you are choosing to start a conversation with also has their own individual preferences and predispositions to certain type of appearance. So there is a chance you might simply not look like somebody's type, so to speak. And that's perfectly okay to understand. All right. So that's first impressions from a to Z. The only thing we haven't covered in this video is what to actually say. And you will be getting a bunch of that in a moment, believe me. But to recap, first impressions are the most important part of the conversation. They have the potential to set the stage of your relationship with that person for the next, I don't know, 10 or 20 years, if not more. And the majority of it can be boiled down to non-verbal communication. In order, the three most important parts of that nonverbal communication, our body language, your voice, and your appearance, optimize your body language. We talked about using size and vulnerability. The bigger and more vulnerable your body language is, the higher the likelihood of apparent confident for your voice. Make sure you remember to project and to speak slowly. Most people get way too nervous on the approach and end up speaking a little bit too fast, kinda like an episode of the chipmunks. So if you can slow it down and speak at a loud and measured pace, you will improve the way that you are perceived every time. And lastly, appearance is context dependent, but there are a few things you can do right now to up those odds of yours, hygiene, fitness, and general health. I hope you guys enjoyed this video on first impressions and I will see you in the next one where we are going to be discussing nine exceptional conversation starters and what's actually say.
5. 9 Exceptional Conversation Starters: In this video, we're gonna be talking about conversation starters. And I'm gonna give you guys a quick list of my favorite nine exceptional ways to start a conversation that you guys can literally just copy and paste whenever and wherever you want to saying that I like a lot is good artists copy, great artists steal. So really feel free to copy and paste these. Use them word for word in your own life. I don't care as long as it makes you guys get better. Now the key to these starters is that they are simple, they are direct, and many of them also subliminally convey your value as a social partner. It's important for whoever you're speaking to to think that you are potentially interesting and a valuable person, a no. So these openers, I call them sprinkle those little implications in throughout by being simple and direct. They're also very easy to say no to, which is also very important. I haven't talked about that yet. You don't want that other person to feel like they're locked into a long conversation with you. You want them to feel that it's casual, it's spontaneous, it's just a matter of circumstance. You could also obviously be saying all these things with a smile, of course, but that's all I'm going to talk about body language for this one. Now you don't need to copy these Exactly If you don't want to, every opener is based on a concept. So if you guys wanna make your own opener, just pick one, distill the concept and then just make another one based on that concept 80 to 90 percent of the time it's going to be okay. So with all that said, let's get into it. Number one is high. I don't think I've met you yet. Now, this first one functions great at events or work or pretty much everywhere you have more than one or two people that you know that you can use a, some sort of social proof. The reason why this is so great is that it's simple and direct, both things that obviously we want. And it also makes it look like the sort of person who meets a lot of other people. The more people another person thinks that, you know, generally the more willing there'll be to talk to you because it's less stressful, you appear lower commitment, more experienced. All this stuff basically means you look cool. So there's one of my favorite conversations starters, by far, just to reiterate, it's high, I don't think I've met you yet. Number two is, hey, I like your produce. This work is great and literally any situation, it's a good all-purpose conversation starter, whether your work or a party or on the bus, even in church. And you can replace shoes with literally anything else that you want. And that said, I generally find that biological things like eyes or skin usually don't work as well as accessories like boots or shoes or umbrellas. Because the former, the biological stuff or just things that somebody is born with, you don't really have a choice to change them. Whereas the latter side, our personality items, there, things that somebody consciously takes the time to choose and it's lot more representative of who they are as a person, probably the types of things that they value as well. Number three is, Hey, you haven't fun. This works best at medium to large sized events. Usually you'll find somebody that is on their own in a corner and you'll see it with a smile on your face. It works in both the positive sense and it works in the negative sense because probably what half the time the other person will say Absolutely. And the other half they will say, I'm having a terrible time, which is actually one of my favorite ways to break the ice, believe it or not, I don't lean. I'm not happy they're having a bad time, but I am happy that they're willing to be vulnerable and kind of connect with me right up front before is, Hey, are you end up people watching too? This is a great conversation starter to use at events or a restaurant or even at a bar. But you can also just use it on the side of the street. If you see somebody standing around maybe eating a bagel or something and they look interesting enough for you. This is a great way to casual introduce yourself and kind of make fun of the whole situation while doing it. And R5 is, Hey, are you irregular here? You can use this at bars, events and really any group situation that meets habitually. I use it all the time when I'm playing intramurals myself, like what I'm doing, dodgeball or something like that, or when I'm out with friends. And it's also really quick way to start a conversation that's topical and context-dependent, but still gives you opportunities to branch out on to other things. Number sixes, you look like you're having fun. Hands down one of the best conversation starters at a party. The difference between this one and the question we asked earlier which was, Hey, having fun, is that this one works really well in high-energy environments predominantly, and you're probably not going to get a negative answer. These are places where people are bouncing off the walls or the music is really loud, or it's just crazy. These types of places are awesome to use this type of thing. Like I say, you're almost always going to get a positive reaction. It's a great way to create a conversation centered around positivity and having fun experiences and stuff like that. So I personally love using this in romantic situations as well. Number seven is, I gotta go in a second, but, and then literally any other opener. So for example, Hey, I gotta go in a second, but I really like your shoes. This one works really well primarily because it says an artificial time constraint on your conversation. Since the other person now knows that you are not going to be lingering and they have a really easy out in case they don't like you or you smell or something like that. This means that there are a lot more willing to bring those barriers down and talk to you on a personal level before you go. People all over the world use this and other types of conversation starters to build really strong, usually romantic relationships with people and just 20 or 30 minutes or to set the stage for a lifelong career relationship as well. If you're meeting them a like a networking event or something like that. Having a goal is also very compelling, makes you look busy, which is another very positive social signal. And I personally find that the sense of the rush that you have to go soon can keep things exciting. Number eight is the classic. Hey, so why are you here? I like this one primarily because I think it has a flurry sort of vibe to it. It's a very confident conversation starter in English because you're asking somebody to justify their presence without really knowing them or anything about them. But when it works and romantic context, it really does work. Access the conversation off on the right foot. Romantic sort of way, which can be obviously very beneficial. And lastly, number nine is called the help opener. You can literally ask anything contextual, but an example of this might be, hey, why did they dim the lights? This is where you ask a question about a problem that you're having in your environment. And because people have this sort of natural tendency or natural inclination to want to solve problems for other people and be seen as helpful there happily going to answer. And because of a psychological principle called cognitive dissonance, you're basically double-dipping. This means that people generate justifications for their actions after they have done them. This makes them like you more because if they didn't like you, why the hell would they be helping you out, right? There's a discord there. If they didn't like you and didn't want to help you, they wouldn't have helped you, but they did. Therefore, they have to like you. This is a positive way to gain a little bit in the relationship right away. All right, that takes the end of our nine exceptional conversation starters, you know, the tools of the trade that you need to be able to start a conversation and basically any environment with anyone that you would like. And you can do it in a confident way that implies that you are both socially valuable and have social options. In the next few videos, we're going to talk about what happens immediately after you open the conversation as well. Some more general principles and how to make people like Yeah, I'll see you guys in a moment.
6. Making People Like & Respect You: All right, so one of the most important things about starting and continuing conversations is making people like you, right? Why else would be doing this? Conversations in and of themselves are great, but they're much better when the other person actually is a genuine interests and who you are and what you're saying. So in this lesson, That's what we're going to be talking about. We're gonna go over the sort of men always behind how you can make people like you in three simple steps. Now I touched on this in the previous video a little bit, but the key to making people like you during a cold interaction, cold being an interaction where neither of you have ever met before is appearing abundant and setting time limits. The first principle which is appearing abundant, is really just a generalization of the idea. You are a valuable person and a lot of people probably don't know what I mean by valuable person. And there may be other people out there that just don't like that term. I mean, people aren't objects, right? Isn't that just objectification? Well, you can think of the social world is really just another form of the economy. Just like the actual economy has commodities and bonds and companies, the social economy has people that are valuable, those that provide a high return on investment for relationship. And it also as people that are going to be more in demand than their counterparts because of that. But what is this value that I'm speaking of? Well, value socially comes in many forms. First of all, value can be actual value. A lot of people are attracted to wealth. Then I say that completely seriously, if you're a wealthy, you're probably gonna have a lot more people that want to be around data, just sheer desire to be able to share some of that wealth than we're poor. This is human nature. We can't change that. Obviously that's the most extreme example, but other examples of value might just be how funny you are to be around if you're a genuine pleasure to spend time with. If you make people laugh, that's valuable or you can tell a great story and it's also valuable, then people are going to be able to want to know you more and kind of be around you more often. With all that said though, it is kind of hard to figure out whether another person is socially valuable if you are just meeting them for the first time, I mean, they don't tell you your net worth after it thirty-seconds, right? They're also not going to potentially display the height of their social acuity if you only have two or three minutes. So what our brain does, instead of verify that stuff experimentally is it guesses and makes an educated estimate as to how important the person who was in the social economy. And because it's a pretty fast estimate, just had a necessity. It uses some pretty dumb down and very simple factors to determine how valuable the other person is. And then takes me back to the idea of implying that you are a popular, abundant person. Because the biggest factor that other people use to quickly estimate whether or not you are socially valuable is whether or not other people find you socially valuable too. And that makes sense, right? If you only have one minute to make a judgment on something, a big part of your decision-making is probably going to involve what everybody else thinks about that one thing, right? It makes sense where human beings are social animals. This is crucial that people considering a potential friend or maybe a romantic partner with time, people will eventually get to see you for who you are and hopefully each of you are interesting and exciting people in your own right. So everything turns out well, but at the very beginning, because other people simply do not have the resources, that guess probably dictates as much as 50 percent how the interaction is going to go. And that's why it's so important to appear socially abundant and to be very well adjusted, even if you guys have the greatest personality in the world, if you look at first glance like you have no friends, it is going to be a lot more difficult to navigate in the social world. And that's what a large portion of your efforts are going to have to go towards. I talk about it so much in this course. So how do you do this? Well, we already talked a little bit about how to imply that your social superstar in the conversation starters video a few minutes ago, I don't think I've met you yet. The yet part implies that you think you're going to meet everybody eventually because you're just so popular and so cool. And the, I don't think part implies that maybe you haven't met them before, but because you meet so many people normally, it might not remember who they are and other one is talking to and just starting conversations in general, which if you guys are following this class, you are going to already be doing the mere fact that you are willing to go up to people and say something heavily implies that you guys are already very confident unless they're very social and it's even better if other people see you doing it. Because then when you go and try and talk to them after, as is done in many events and social situations, those other people are already gonna have that perception that you are somebody worth knowing because of how many other people you know. So the implication game is very important. If somebody asks what you're doing on a Friday night and you haven't really decided yet, the wrong answer would be, I'm gonna go home alone and lay on the couch. A better answer might be, I'm looking at a few options, but I'm sort of spontaneous. If you've ever heard the old saying, fake it until you make it. This is basically the social version of that whole idea. And if you guys don't have that social abundance yet, do not worry. You will develop it eventually and you legitimately will have so many options that it's going to be hard for you to decide on one. At the beginning, it is completely understandable if you're new to meeting people, that you are not going to have those sorts of plans. Your schedule is not going to be fully booked up and you're not going to have those friends that you want. Another aspect of making people like he was expressing interest in their life. This may be surprising for some, but the people that are very good at starting conversations usually do not actually do most of the talking. They will initially, when the other person's guard is still up and maybe they're a little bit withdrawn. But quickly is that guard comes down. They will transition to the listening significantly more than they talk. Because now they understand this simple principle. The more a person talks about themselves, the more they will like the person that is listening. In practical terms, is obviously, isn't always easy. If you're initiating the conversation, you need to know how to sustain it as well. So doing that in a way that lets the other person talk about themselves as very important, but it's not always going to happen. Practical terms, this isn't always easy. You guys are initiating a conversation. You need to know how to sustain it as well and to do so in a way that lets the other person talk about themselves more than you talk about yourself. Luckily for this, all you have to do is remember four letters, Ford, which stands for family occupation, recreation and dreams. You want to continue a conversation with somebody after the initial conversation starter and maybe a few brief chuckled. You need to be able to ask the right kinds of questions and make the right sorts of observations, which is exactly what Forward allows you to do. So Ford family occupation, recreation, and dreams, these are all topics that are safe enough not to trigger somebody's defenses and a cold conversation. But they're also interesting enough that the person will usually have a lot to talk about if prompted to. For example, Are you an only child? That is a family question. How do you like your work is an occupation question. Why do you like skydiving is a recreation question? And what sort of impact you want to have in the world is a Dreams question. Forward ultimately makes the entire process of continuing these conversations incredibly easy. And it's one of the cornerstones are looking socially effortless and genuinely interesting, which is why I love it so much. That said, you can't just ask questions all day. I personally like to follow a simple rule that I'm using Ford. I will ask a question, then I will listen to the answer, then I will make a statement. And then, and only then will I ask another question. For example, if this were a conversation, how do you like being an only child? Oh, I love it. My my parents are awesome. They spell me all the time. I'm going to get a massive inheritance. Yeah, I've always wondered, would that be like I had two older brothers and it was a zoo in my house. Do you think that you're closer with your family because you're an only child. Obviously, every conversation is different. You don't need to talk about just being only children, but I think you guys got the guest. If your partner asks you a question in-between that which they eventually will, because that is how you have a conversation. And so that first before continuing and boom, you have a simple formula you guys can use in 95 percent of cases applied with Ford that can indefinitely prolong a conversation probably 99 percent of the time. The important thing is though, that you have to actually listen. You have to actually be able to make observations about what your conversation partner is, talking about, what is important to them, stuff like that. If you're not genuinely interested in them, they're not going to like you. Your conversation is just going to inevitably end and peer out. Alright, that's it for this lesson here we learned the number one rule of making people like you, which is to present yourself as valuable in the social economy. We talked about several different ways that you guys could do that, including being a pleasure to be around, making your conversation partner laugh, right? Having actual value in terms of connections or wealth and many, many other ways. We also mentioned how most people make snap judgments based off whether or not you appear socially abundant, as well as several ways that you can imply that your socially abundant and you have a large social network using a few tricks of the English language, as well as boosting or confidence by approaching people. Unfortunately, what conversations need to end eventually, and that's what I'm gonna be talking about in the next video. How to end a conversation gracefully, assess whether or not the person you were talking to is worth knowing and kinda moving forward with and how to collect their contact information in an intelligent way. Stay tuned for that.
7. Ending Conversations: 3 Simple Steps: All right, So over the last few videos, you guys learned the importance of starting conversations with others and how it can improve your life. You also learned how to actually get out there and do it, right? You learn how to appear socially successful, what to say to start a conversation and how to continue on and make people like you. At this point, the only thing left is to learn how to end a conversation. Now how to end a conversation is almost as important as how to begin one. And that's for the simple reason that just like you have first impressions, you also have something called last impressions. The impression that you give the person you're speaking with right before you to part ways is actually almost as important as the impression that you give them when you first meet. That's because that impression is how they're going to remember you by for the rest of time. So first of all, how do you know it's time to end a conversation? Well, there are a couple of possibilities. It's possible that your conversation partner wants to end it instead of you. But maybe they're just not confident enough to tell you directly into that situation. You need to learn how to infer that they are feeling that way and make the decision and the conversation for them. By doing this, they will gain some respect for you and they're also going to be more likely to maybe you want to talk to you again in the future. And there's a possibility of maybe they're just not feeling it right now. There are a couple of ways to tell. The first and probably most important way to tell is their body language. If their feet are pointing away from you or they're bodies are turned kind of in a different direction that's not completely facing you. They probably want to go. If they're constantly looking somewhere that's not right at your face every two seconds, likes maybe some more of your shoulder and you see them go back to that area over and over and over again over the course of a few seconds. That is another big, good signal that you guys can use, or possibly just the conversation is going stale. You are finding that they are not putting in as much effort as they were a few minutes ago. Obviously, that's another good signal of your conversation partner probably wants to cut this off. So that's the first possibility. The possibility that you are the one getting dumped, so to speak. The other possibility is that you are the one dumping them. You're the one that wants and that conversation. Maybe you don't find them at all interesting, or perhaps you've decided you don't like this person. Or really what's more likely and probably going to be 95 percent of your cases. You just have other stuff going on that day and you've had enough fun in the conversation already, it's time to end it and get the hell out of there. Whatever your specific scenario here is, how to end a conversation gracefully in three simple steps. First, you reaffirm your attentions. You ask yourself why you went up to this person in the first place. If it was just to kill time, you're probably not taking it much further. If you approach them for a potential relationship or maybe a boost to your career, you probably are going to be wanting to take it further. I want you to make that quick mental note and confirm whether or not that idea of your conversation has been changed by the actual conversation. The next step if after making that mental note, you decide that yes, I do want to take it further and you need to stop talking and get their contact information. The best rule of thumb here is to go as low investment with the contact information as possible. If you guys really quick, it doesn't matter what the medium is so long as that it is easy and it is frictionless to either give or to receive, that you can say one of many things here, a quick and easy conversation under that I always uses, Hey, it's been a pleasure talking, but I got to run. Why don't we exchange contact information and keep in touch another one that works well if you're at the tail end of a conversation and you don't want to keep going with them is just all right. Well, thanks for the conversation I gotta run by. In my specific case, I personally love giving out my Instagram. I'd give it out to pretty much everybody I talked to and it works for I like to think every situation, it's a good representation of who I am for relationship stuff. It has links to my accomplishments for career stuff. And it's also just a great way to keep in touch more generally and more socially. But the key is it's super fast to give out, which is the most important part. I can just say something like, Hey, it's been a pleasure talking, but I got to run one. He had me on Instagram and we'll keep in touch that way. It takes maybe three seconds to say, it might take another 10, maybe 15 seconds to actually go out there and exchange that Instagram and then you guys are on with your life. I usually have them add me so I can immediately contact them after we part ways. But if you don't wanna do that or if you don't like Instagram, just swap it out for a phone number or for Facebook, or whenever your preferred method of communication is, all of that works the exact same. Now after you've received or giving your contact information, the last step is to send them a follow-up, ideally about 20 or 30 minutes after you guys have met. The reason you want to do it 20 or 30 minutes later rather than immediately, is because it reminds them of who you are. Sometimes people forget, as well as the small space of time makes this feel like an independent interaction. Doesn't feel like a continuation of the previous one, but something new. You can go later. You can even go earlier as well. But I find 2030 minutes is usually ideal because it's not so fast that they get weirded out, but it's also not so long that they forget who you are. It's kinda like the Goldilocks zone. You can send anything you want here. I personally was like descend a little joke related to what we were talking about or if it's a professional, something like I'm glad we met. Thank you for telling me about x, y, and z. If it's romantic, you know, if you're doing this romantic purposes, maybe do throne, that joke thrown flourish, thrown a couple of monkey faces, and there you have it. If you guys did everything right, the conversation was enjoyable and you picked a low friction contact method. There's probably about an 80 percent chance that you guys are going to end up keeping this person in your life for some time. That is a real genuine connection. That is something that can actually change your life. The other 20 percent of the time that conversation partner may politely tell you no, and that's completely fine. There is not much you can do to change that, so stop worrying about it. I hope that this video was helpful and you guys learned a little bit about how to make a lasting last impression. I will see you in the next and last video.
8. In Closing: And that takes us to the end of our course on how to start conversations like a pro, like we talked about in the class of improving your ability to start conversations is going to improve your career. It's going to improve your relationships, and it's gonna improve your overall happiness. Unfortunately, most people are losing the ability to do so effectively. Technology in particular is lowering the difficulty needed to engage in social interactions. But it's not increasing the fulfillment and they're not replacing them with something else. So today I personally find that there's a net loss in most people's social lives that we need to correct after we talked a bit about why to start conversations, we also learned how to do so, starting with the first impression, like we talked about, the first impression is that the most important part of the conversation, which is why it's crucial to have good body language, incredibly good vocal tone, a warm smile. After that, we learned nine exceptional openers that you guys can just copy and paste in your own social lives. And we also discussed how to make people like you, namely how to appear socially abundance and how to have good opportunities. Finally, we learned how to end a conversation. The three simple steps reaffirm your intentions and get their contact information. And and the conversation. I hope you guys enjoyed this class. I am so happy I had the chance to make this forget. You guys had any questions or any comments, please feel free to leave them. I love reviews as well, so we've ever wanted to leave a review. Now is the time. This is just one of many communication skills classes that I teach. So you guys like this, please feel free to check out some of my other classes, but that's all for now. I hope you guys have a lovely rest of the week.