The Universal Secret – And why we can’t live without it

August 26, 2009

Could it really be that simple?

Could the answer to all of our consistency issues be right under our noses?

Why is it that sometime’s we can light up a room, while other times members of the opposite sex turn away in disinterest?

I’ll tell you the answer right now but I’ll have to explain myself for it to sink in. The difference between really connecting with people and not – the thing that every ‘natural’ is always doing in spades but can never quite put into words – is simply speaking the universal language.

Cliché tells us that love is the universal language, however this is only partially true and and isn’t helpful for people looking for the translation – the Rosetta Stone – so to speak.

I actually have to thank an old smoking habit for helping me stumble upon it. Quite a few times in college I had the pesky habit of bumming cigarettes. In fact, I did it so much that I got really good at it. I even developed my own little method.

Despite having the best method in the world, it became clear that whether or not I got a cigarette really depended on one thing:

You can try it yourself and get front row seats to the effects. First, go up to 10 people, ask them for a cigarette, and avoid eye contact and look indifferent. Next, go up to another 10 people, ask them for a cigarette – only this time look them directly in the eye and act although you are in intense pain and that they hold the key to your freedom.

Everyone reading this who’s ever been a smoker is with me on this.

When I look into the eyes of a smoker with a look on my face that he or she can fully relate to – that I really need a cigarette – they feel that same pain as they are reminded of their own times of distress. When they feel that pain and can’t help but want to relieve it in another.

Ages before complex systems of naming and describing objects came into human existence, humans beings were still communicating. Although the vast majority of us have an incredibly firm grasp over at least one of these systems, all of the communication that matters the most happens in the same way as it has for our entire existence of our humanity.

A quick look at an on-line thesaurus gives us over 30 words for ‘angry’, however if a 300lb man has the look on his face that says he’s pissed, everyone who gets even the quickest look at him is getting out of his way.

We need language to hammer out the fine details of a business contract, however how many people would actually do business with someone they didn’t trust, who didn’t give them the feeling that they had ulterior motives?

With that in mind, here’s how you always “get your openers to stick”:

The phrase, “you can tell a lot about a man by his handshake” has been around for awhile. More recently though, the phrase has been taken to advise that one should attempt to squeeze another person’s hand as firmly as possible to show how “confident” they are.

When you greet someone, you can tell a lot about them by their handshake, or more specifically, whenever they greet you in general. The ‘firmness’ of the greeting, however, isn’t how you can tell; even though a firm handshake will often happen as a byproduct.

You can tell this by looking right at the person to see if his eyes are meeting yours and if he has a look of warmth on his face. If you approach a woman, and they look at you and your eyes aren’t meeting hers (theirs) and you don’t have a look of warmth on your face, she will get the same feeling you get when you’re working with a person that you just don’t feel right about, you just don’t trust, and you decide not to work with him.

Let me make two things clear:

If you are thinking about your ‘opener’ when you approach a woman, or maybe just feeling shy, you will not be looking into her eyes, you will not have a warm expression on your face, and she’ll get that feeling that no human likes to feel.

If you start thinking about what to say during a conversation, or question whether or not she likes you, your eyes will drift, your face will become expressionless, and she will definitely get that feeling.

Plus there’s one more important factor to consider:

Women are much better at feeling this stuff than guys, and herein lies the apparent solution, and also the new problem.

On one hand – success in communication, in being charismatic or a ‘natural’, lies in your ability to express emotion vividly on your face and in turn make others feel that emotion. Without that, we’re merely self aware computers exchanging information; and the last thing a woman wants when she goes out is to exchange information – she wants to feel.

On the other hand, it’s never that simple.

Human beings, especially women, have a keen intuition for when someone has their own self interests in mind rather than hers. It’s the same as when you can just feel that a bad salesmen has his commission in mind as he’s talking to you.

It just feels off.

It’s not just selfish thinking that can give another person that feeling, it’s thinking about anything other than the person that you’re communicating with.

And you can’t just act like you’re feeling something for this to work. Try to look happy while you’re thinking negative thoughts, it’s just weird. You actually have to feel these things yourself for them not to trip her bullshit meter.

Of course again this isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Often, when we’ve been hurt in the past, we don’t put ourselves ‘out there’ as much in order to reduce the risk of additional pain. One of the ways people do this is to become more soft spoken, and to withdraw emotion from their face when they speak and “act cool”.

Most of us found out at an early age that it doesn’t really sting when someone shoots down our words, but if we put our heart into something and get rejected, then there’s a pain that can make a child cry. As an adult, we are strong enough to take this pain, but many of us fear that it will be as bad as when we were still developing psychologically.

In order to relieve this anxiety, our society has made it increasingly easier to retreat from putting yourself out there.

Email and social networking sites are amazing advancements in communications and quite incredibly make our world much smaller. The problem arises however, when we use these technologies as a form of mental crutch to avoid actual human communication.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised in the least to hear about studies that show that the people who are the most active on Facebook often report feeling the loneliest.

As easy as it would be, we can’t simply blame Facebook. How many people that you work with on a day to day basis do you try to connect with, and how many do you shoot a couple passing words to without strong eye contact and a warm expression on your face?

If you don’t do it as a natural habit with everyone you meet, it’ll be even more awkward to try and do it with women.

Pay attention the next time you’re out at a bar and here’s what you’ll see:

There will be some people having a good time. They’re laughing, moving around, speaking at a higher decibel than everyone else, and looking each other in the eyes with genuine emotions that they’re definitely feeling on their faces.

On the flip side of the coin, you’ll have people, usually around the outskirts of the ‘fun people’, who have that look on their face that they’re not quite ‘there’, that something’s on their mind, and that it’s probably not the most positive of things.

It’s easy to identify these people, their faces are are lacking all but forced acts of emotion, they’re not moving, even if they are talking to a friend they look as though they’re not really enjoying the conversation, they’re eyes are looking down more than at their friend, maybe they’re looking at their phone – not really to communicate with an absent friend, but simply to take their mind off of the anxiety they’re feeling.

The thing is that they came to the bar for the same reason as everyone else.

They want to be the ‘fun people’. Just about every person has been there before and it’s amazing. You’re having the best time, lighting up emotionally, talking more loudly, and of course attracting more of the opposite sex than ever before – you’re “in the zone”.

The next morning though, we’re usually a bit hungover, we know we just had the most amazing time the night before; the only problem is we can’t remember how to get that back. We search high and low, trekking out to the bar night after night – both men and women – and start drinking with our fingers crossed that it’s going to happen again, maybe with some lines that we believe will do the work of getting it back for us.

The thing is, we know how to get that feeling back, we’ve simply forgotten.

When we see a baby crying or smiling, only the most emotionally checked out people cant help but feel upset or happy, respectively. When we see genuine emotion in another person, we can’t help but feel the reflection of that emotion in ourselves, and we subconsciously drawn to those who make us feel positive emotions, and repelled by people who make us feel negative emotions.

Love-hate relationships are especially dangerous because they literally tear us apart.

Now here’s the fun effect of all of this:

By looking straight into another person’s eyes with genuine emotion while focusing strongly on her emotions – unless she’s feeling an equally strong negative emotion – you will cause her to feel that emotion and subconsciously become more drawn to you. If you don’t, she won’t. This should clear up any questions routine guys have as to why they’re having inconsistency issues. Sometime’s she’s feeling you, literally, sometimes she’s not.

Upon first developing this ancient skill, one will often feel awkward or clumsy with it, as with any other skill they would develop. With practice though, things slow down.

People will say that you give off this energy, and it’s as if you can read their mind, probably better than they can read their own.

It’s what every natural is doing without knowing it – and through this development than one can become a natural.

Because it is a skill that, like any other, takes practice; one should practice as much as possible. Start with family, friends, co-workers, people at the corner store, everyone. Soon people that have known you forever will be saying those words that we all love to hear:

“There’s something different about you”.

When you go to the bar, instead of scanning the bar for an ‘HB9′ that you can approach in 3 seconds or less, get in a circle with your friends and do what we at The Social Man affectionally call the ‘bro circle’. Whether there’s 2 or 10 of you start emoting. Remember, you’re only as strong as your weakest link, so make sure that everyone is pulling the line. Talk at a higher decibel, move around, talk with your hands, have looks of genuine expression on your faces and look each other in the eye.

The great thing about this is half the time, you forget about the bro circle and actually have fun with your friends when one of you remembers this story you forgot to tell – by acting as though you have emotion you’ll actually feel the emotion. Try smiling for a minute and not feel happy.

Then you’ll start to notice the looks.

All of the girls that are around the periphery will start emoting, themselves.

They’ll talk more loudly, move more, have more expression on their faces, and yes, start to glance in your direction. They now want you to approach them.

They probably don’t rationalize what just happened. But they felt a little hint of that feeling they all came to the bar in the first place to feel, and they’re drawn to it.

Don’t get me wrong, social skills in approaching strangers and escalating interactions are very important skills to develop, and that’s why we’ve developed ‘Say Hello’ and ‘Irresistible’, however if you’re not developing this universal skill that will allow you to powerfully communicate with anyone, anytime, anywhere, then you’ll always face inconsistencies in your interactions.

Also, don’t be surprised that when, through tapping into this, you re-realize your infinite power to strongly connect with anyone, and things start going much better in every other aspect of your life.

As you begin to pay attention to everyone again, you’ll notice that the majority of us are a bit withdrawn and often appear anxious or lost. There is no better time to remind people of what we are all looking for.

Before we’re all on “2nd Life”, remind people that the answer we’re all looking for is right in front of us, and yes, don’t be surprised when you’ve loved a woman or two along the way and your friends in the community say you look like a natural.

Posted by Nick Sparks | Filed Under Women And The World | Comments 

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How to Throw a Big Party

August 24, 2009

Our party last week was a massive success: about 200 guests through the door, over $3000 raised for the charity and we met our bar guarantee.  One of my co-hosts – John G – also had the good grace to stop the party and get everyone to sing me happy birthday – absolutely something I’ll never forget.

It took a lot to make this one happen.  Negotiating with a venue, stuffing gift bags, collecting items for a silent auction… I was lucky to be working with a few very organized people.

I’ve written before about how to get the word out about a party (although that post seems to be lost, hmmm) and how to be a good social connector, so today, let’s consider the flow of the party.

If you want your party to achieve “rager” status, you’ve got about four hours to make it happen.  The crowd, the music, and the alcohol need to come together in the right way to get people to forget about the rest of their lives for a few hours and surrender completely to the fun they’re having.

Let’s start with the crowd: it’s not sufficient to invite your friends.  They all know each other already, and if you’re a guy, then chances are that most of your friends are guys too.  And they’ll most likely bring guys, because if you hype your party enough, they’re not going to want to bring a date unless she’s a girlfriend – they want to meet girls there. So get a co-host or five.

When you have enough co-hosts – and when there are slightly more female co-hosts than males – you’ll end up with the right male:female ratio.  People will feel peripherally connected, but see a lot of new faces.

How about the music?  A good DJ or two will do the hard work for you, but if you don’t know any (and even if you do, and want to give them some direction), a few tips…  The first hour and a half should be fairly chill, and not too loud.  You want people talking and getting comfortable with each other and in the venue.  Stuff like Gypsy Kings, Buena Vista Social Club, even a little ambient music is fine.  But starting about an hour and a half into the party, the music should increase in volume and vibe.  Nothing insane… but definitely more fun.  Some 80’s and 90’s hip hop… stuff that just feels good.  And about two and half hours into the party, break out the dance music.  Madonna, Kanye, Lionel Richie… the big hits that everyone loves to dance and sing along to.

And finally, the alcohol.  Alcohol plays an important part in making a rager come together.  Besides getting people drunk, it provides a social activity, and if delivered right, adds greatly to the vibe of the party.

People rarely show up and start hitting liquor hard, but it’s in your best interest as a host to get them two drinks in fairly quickly – within 45 to an hour.  Italian beer brand Peroni sponsored our event, so we gave everyone who paid in advance a free beer with their admission for this event.  Two-for-one cocktails in the first hour of the party is another great way to get people drinking.

About two hours into the party, accompanying the music changes, the shots should start flying; this is when you as the host have to be a catalyst.  And the fancier the alcohol, the better.  No one loves straight vodka shots, but when it’s Grey Goose, very few people will say no.  Patron is obviously another winner.

Not long after the shots start flowing – maybe 15 to 30 minutes – get ready to pop some bottles of champagne.  Pour them into flutes and distribute them to as many girls as you can – the hotter the better.  It is an old party axiom that if hot girls are having fun, other people will start to have fun too.   Don’t be stingy with the champagne – it doesn’t have to be Cristal – it just has to be bubbly and fun.  Do this two or three more times over the next 30-45, as people are dancing more.  Your goal is for the girls to feel taken care of.

Think of it this way: the hosts set the vibe of the party, and if they do things right, the hot girls pick up on that.  Fun and social guys start to vibe off the hot girls, and soon, everyone is drinking, dancing and enjoying themselves.  Lost in the moment of the party and forgetting about their days.

If things have come together properly, an early evening party (i.e. something that starts around 6:30) should really be moving about 3 hours in.  Later parties i.e. those that start around 10 or 11 should be moving within two hours – just compress the activity timeline.

Posted by Christian | Filed Under Live The Good Life | Comments 

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Tonight…

August 19, 2009

I turned 30 on Sunday, and to celebrate, I’ve been planning a charity event that is taking place tonight.  Drop whatever plans you have… this is going to be a fantastic party.  You can get details and buy tickets at: www.karmaparty.org

Posted by Christian | Filed Under Live The Good Life | Comments 

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