I spoke with someone a while back and he told me the following story:

I met a person from an ivy league school who was not only smart but he had this amazing ability.  He could talk about all his accomplishments modestly but here was the kicker…

He was somehow able to make me feel like everything I said was important and interesting.  I felt like I could tell him anything.  He made me “feel” like opening up to the point of baring my soul.

And on top of all that…there was this sense that we’ve known each other for a very long time.

Bottom line…

So the question I had was, how did he do that?  Was this something that was “learnable”?  Could I actually get the answer to “How do you gain people skills?”

As an introvert, I was always quiet and kind of shy.  I always felt a little awkward starting conversations with people…

But if I could learn how to be socially savvy and get a little more charismatic, I could do all kinds of different things.

I could meet more people and make more connections…

I could further my career and make more money…

And my love life would probably take off as well.

Now I have heard this story many times in many different ways.  A regular introverted person has a really great social experience and wants to learn how to recreate it.  Well that charismatic guy from the story probably built his people skills over a period of time.

Often times those that are the best at socializing have simply had more practice and experience than the average person.  They may have even been thrown into situations and had to develop those people skills as a matter of survival.

This reminds of me of Sun Tzu in The Art Of War.  To make sure that his army fought as hard as possible, he would create a certain psychological death ground.

As soon as their boats reached the enemy’s shore, Sun Tzu would instruct that they burn all their boats and all their food.

If they wanted food, they had to take it from the enemy.  If they wanted to get back home, they would need to take the enemy’s boats after and only after…they defeated them.

Before we go any further, I want you to think about something.  What if your survival depended on your people skills?  On your ability to charm others and get them to like you right away?  What if the ONLY way you could eat food and get nourishment was through using your people skills?

How fast would you pick these skills up then?

That’s right.  It isn’t magic.  It isn’t fate.  And thank God…it isn’t fair.  It is just a skill.  A simple measly learnable skill.  A skill just like math, reading, playing an instrument, playing a sport, etc…

This means that all you need to do is learn the skill.  And once you learn the skill and download it into your skull, you will be able to tip the odds in your favor.

And this is one of my Principles of Conversational Mastery.

And it is 100% backed with science and how the brain works.

Have you ever heard of Pavlov and his dogs?  A while back there was a man named Pavlov who was studying how dogs salivated.  One day he noticed something very interesting.  He noticed that the dogs were starting to salivate before they even got their food.

He quickly figured out that the dogs would salivate as soon they heard the researchers’ footsteps bringing them their food.  So Pavlov became curious and wondered if the sound neurons in the dogs’ brains had somehow gotten wired up to the food neurons in their brains.

So he created an experiment where he would ring a bell every time he fed the dogs.  And then the magic happened.  He rang the bell without giving the dogs their food.  And guess what happened?

Their mouth watered.  This meant that their brain had wired up the “sound” with “food”.  And this was called classical conditioning.

Now at first this little experiment seems kind of cool but not really that big of deal right?  Well here’s the thing…

Most of what you experience day in and day out in your own life is the exact same thing.

Try this example.

I bet if you could begin to think about a nice fresh lemon that you could imagine what it would be like to hold it in your hand.  And as you see that lemon and feel its bumpy waxy surface...

You might even wonder what would happen if you were to slice it open and allow all that cold wet juice to run down your fingers.

And who knows what that juice might smell like...

And taste like...

As you bring your hand to your mouth...

And begin to drink that sour tangy lemon juice.

Your mouth might just…

Begin to water.

...

Now how did that happen?

Isn’t it interesting that you can get a physical reaction from your body just by imagining it?  We do this all the time and don’t even realize it.  Our conditioning is unconscious.  That means you really don’t know when it is happening…now.  It’s just like when you get a certain smell that takes you back and those old memories automatically come back up out of nowhere.

Oh yeah, I was just getting to that.  Be an upper not a downer.

Remember Pavlov’s dogs?  Well when it comes to meeting new people and being charismatic…you are the bell.

When you're talking with people, you are automatically causing them to feel a certain way.  If you run up to a person and SCREAM IN THEIR FUCKING FACE while kicking them in the shin…they will probably have a “bad feeling”.

And their “bad feeling” neurons will get wired up to the “you” neurons in their brain.  So every time they make a picture of you in their mind, hear your voice, or think of anything else related to you…

It is classically conditioned in their brain.  The formula in their mind is You = Bad feelings.  This is just like Pavlov’s dogs where the formula was Sound Of Bell = Make Mouth Water.

The main thing I want you to get here is that this whole thing is automatic.  It happens below conscious awareness.

Think of a person that you don’t like or maybe even hate.  Really pull them into your mind.  See their face right in front of you invading your space.  Hear their voice and notice how loud it is along with any other qualities.

Depending on how strong your brain wired the idea of that person up in your mind to “bad feelings”…you should get an automatic feeling about them.  This is just like when you imagined the lemon and your mouth watered.

So now that you have the experience of classical conditioning and understand how our minds connect things together, you might realize…

So how do you make a person feel soooooo good that every time they think of you…they “feel good”?  Remember the story at the beginning?  The guy who felt good just by remembering his social interaction?  Where he met a person who made him “feel good”?

How do you develop people skills and influence another person like that?

First ask yourself the following question?

What are all the ways people have made you feel good while talking to you?  This might seem trivial at first until you realize that…

“Most people are unable to see things from another person’s point of view”

This means that we can get stuck thinking about something in just one way.  We want the other person to make us feel good first.

It doesn’t work that way.

So take the things that other people do to make you feel good…and use them to make the other person feel good.

Side note.  Do you see how everything we have talked about so far was just the setup?  We had to build a few concepts in your mind first before jumping into the how-to stuff.

Ever notice that most advice out there just gives you the techniques and tactics without giving you any of the concepts or structure?

It’s important to know...

Now that you have the deeper structures installed in your mind, you can begin to better-use the other advice you find online.  You can use the tactics with purpose and strategy.

You can use techniques to make a person feel good first and classically condition their brain…

So they feel good just by thinking about you even when you're not around.

1  Laser focus on the other person and openly listen to them.

Have you ever been talking with someone where you could tell that they weren’t listening to a word you were saying?  How did that make you feel?  It probably didn’t make you feel important or heard.

When you're talking to another person, it is critical that you make them the center of your universe.  The guy from the story at the beginning of this article said,

“He was somehow able to make me feel like everything I said was important and interesting.  I felt like I could tell him anything.  He made me feel like opening up to the point of baring my soul”

The people skill this man was using on our friend here was laser-focused listening.

Which brings us to the next tactic…

2  Let the other person be right

What if you were talking with someone and they disagreed with everything you said?  Wouldn’t it feel like they were closed off in some way?  So maybe they were being a great listener and laser-focusing on everything you were saying…

But they had a wall up and wouldn’t let you inside.

This type of thing happens all the time and it really keeps people from connecting on deeper levels.

Lets get an image in your mind to really understand what I am about to say.

Picture every single person that has ever lived, is living, and will ever live.  Now see each person walking around trapped in their own little reality bubble.  And as they live their lives, there is only one song playing over and over inside their bubble.

And the song goes like this, "I’m right, I’m right, I’m right, I’m right, I’m right”…forever and ever.

There are specific survival reasons for this that we don’t need to get into right now.  But all you need to know at this point is people feel safe when the world works how we expect it to.

When we turn on the faucet, we expect water to flow out…not blood.  When unexpected things happen and we find out we were wrong, our safety and survival is threatened.  This happens at an unconscious level that we are not entirely aware of.

Since people are running around chanting “I’m right” over and over again...

When you let a person be right, you make them feel safe.  And when you feel safe, you open up.

Lets to back to what our friend in the story said,

“He was somehow able to make me feel like everything I said was important and interesting.  I felt like I could tell him anything.  He made me feel like opening up to the point of baring my soul”

The people skill this man was using to make our friend feel like everything he said was important and interesting was “let him be right”.

He didn’t judge.  He didn’t disagree.  He was probably completely open and engaged.  I picture him with his eyes wide open leaning in with a big empathetic smile on his face while listening intently.

You are Pavlov’s bell.  You have the power to program the people you meet.  You can condition them to feel good when they think of you.  Or you can condition them to feel bad when they think of you.

The first tactic to making a person feel good is making them feel heard.  You will do this by laser-focusing your attention on them and fully considering what they are saying.

The second tactic to making a person feel good is by letting them be right.  Because when they feel right, they feel safe.  And when they feel safe, they open up and let you in.

And the most important takeaway of all is…

All you need to do is practice them over and over until they are automatic.

So get out there right now and start practicing what you just learned in this article!

Nick Arkesteyn

Social Circle Maker Method

socialcirclemaker.com