90 Tricks for Success in RelationshipsLittle Tricks for Big Success in Business and Personal Relationships Talking the Winner's Way Topic CategoryCommunication skillsReading Sections Part 8 - HOW TO WORK A PARTY LIKE A POLITICIAN: THE POLITICIAN'S SIX-POINT PARTY CHECKLIST Part 9 - LITTLE TRICKS OF BIG WINNERS; THE MOST TREACHEROUS GLASS CEILING OF ALL
Preface: Having It AllHave you ever admired those successful people who seem to have it all? You see them chatting confidently at business meetings, comfortably at social parties. They're the ones with the best jobs,the nicest spouses, the coolest friends, the biggest bank accounts, the most fashionable zip codes. But wait a minute! A lot of them aren't smarter than you. They're not more educated than you. They're not even better looking! So what is it? (Some people suspect they inherited it. Others say they married it, or were just plain lucky. Tell them to think again.) What it boils down to is their more skillful way of dealing with fellow human beings. You see, nobody gets to the top alone. Over the years, people who seem to "have it all" have captured the hearts and conquered the minds of hundreds of others who helped boost them, rung by rung, tothe top of whatever corporate or social ladder they chose. Wanna-bes wandering around at the foot of the ladder often gaze up and grouse that the Big Boys and Big Girls at the top are snobs. When Big Players don't give them their friendship, love, or business, they call them "cliquish" or accuse them of belonging to an "old-boy network." Some grumble they hit their heads against a "glass ceiling." The complaining Little Leaguers never realize the rejection was their own fault. They'll never know they blew the affair, the friendship, or the deal due to their own communications fumbles. Why don'tthey see it? Because some of the moves Big Winners make are so smooth, so subtle, it takes anotherBig Winner to recognize them. The old boys in the days when top management was, unfortunately, mainly old boyscomplimentedeach other by saying, "Buddy, you ain't no accident." They bestowed this slang tribute with a tinge of jealousy when one old boy saw some sensitive act the other had executed. Indeed, today the old (and not so old) boys and girls who run our country, our corporations, and ourarts "ain't no accident." Each has a bag of tricks, a magic, a Midas touch that turns everything they dointo success. What's in their bag of tricks? You'll find a lot of things: There's a substance that solidifiesfriendships, a wizardry that wins minds, and a magic that makes people fall in love with them.There's also a quality that makes bosses hire and then promote, a characteristic that keeps clientscoming back, and an asset that makes customers buy from them and not the competition. We all havea few of those tricks in our bags, some more than others. Those with a whole lot of them are Big Winners in life. Talking the Winner's Way gives you ninety-two of these little tricks used by BigWinners so you, too, can play the game to perfection and get whatever you want in life. How the Techniques Were DevelopedMany years ago, a drama teacher, exasperated at my bad acting in a college play, shouted, "No! No!Your body is belying your words. Every tiny movement, every body position," he howled, "divulges your private thoughts. Your face can make seven thousand different expressions, and each exposesprecisely who you are and what you are thinking at any particular moment." Then he said something I'll never forget: "And your body! The way you move is your autobiography in motion." How right he was! On the stage of real life, every physical move you make subliminally tellseveryone in eyeshot the story of your life. Dogs hear sounds our ears can't detect. Bats see shapes inthe darkness that elude our eyes. And people make moves that are beneath human consciousness but have tremendous power to attract or repel. Every smile, every frown, every syllable you utter, everyarbitrary choice of word that passes between your lips, can draw others toward you, or make them want to run away. Men, did your gut feeling ever tell you to jump ship on a deal? Women, did your women's intuition make you accept or reject an offer? On a conscious level, we may not be aware of what the hunch is.But like the ear of the dog or the eye of the bat, the elements that make up subliminal sentiments arevery real. Imagine, please, two humans in a complex box wired with circuits to record all the signals flowingbetween the two. As many as 10,000 units of information flow per second. "Probably the lifetimeefforts of roughly half the adult population of the United States would be required to sort the units inone hour's interaction between two subjects," a University of Pennsylvania communications authority estimates. 1 With the zillions of subtle actions and reactions zapping back and forth between two human beings,can we come up with concrete techniques to make our every communication clear, confident,credible, and charismatic? Determined to find the answer, I read practically every book written on communications skills,charisma, and chemistry between people. I explored hundreds of studies conducted around the worldon what qualities made up leadership and credibility. Intrepid social scientists left no stone unturnedin their quest to find the formula. For example, optimistic Chinese researchers, hoping charisma might be in the diet, went so far as to compare the relationship of personality type to thecatecholamine level in subjects' urine.2 Needless to say, their thesis was soon shelved! Most of the studies simply confir |
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