Distilled: How to Talk to Anyone: 92 tricks

Opening Thoughts

How to Intrigue Everyone without Saying a Word

1. Flooding Smile
• Don’t flash an immediate smile, instead slowly let it radiate
• Intense eye contact makes other people respect you more

2. Sticky Eyes
• Glue your eyes to whoever is speaking, which sends a message of comprehension and respect

3. Epoxy Eyes
• If romance is your goal, keep your eyes on the target, but this only works if the woman finds you attractive

4. Hang by your teeth
• A trick for better posture, pretend you are hanging by your teeth on a trapeze bar

5. The big baby pivot
• When meeting someone knew, greet them with warm smile and attention as if talking to a baby

6. Hello old friend
• When talking to someone, you can also see him as an old friend and talk to him naturally

7. Limit the fidget
• Don’t fidget, touch your face

8. Hans Horse Sense
• Express yourself based on what the listener reacts to

9. Watch the scene before you make the scene
• Rehearse what you will say in the best version in your head before saying it

Summary

How to Small Talk

1. Mood Match
• Match the scene and mood. Putting people at ease is more important than what you say

2. Prosaic with Passion
• Your demeanor and passionate delivery is more important than the content

3. Always wears a whatzit
• Wearing a conversation starter, a “What is that” will give a stranger reason to approach

4. Whoozat
• Easiest way to meet someone at a network event/party is to ask the party giver to introduce you. “Who is that?” and help break the ice

5. Eavesdrop In
• Sometimes eavesdropping and jumping in with “Excuse me, but I can’t help but overhear…” is the easiest way to jump in a conversation.

6. Never the Naked City
• Where are you from? is so often asked. never reply with a word reply, adding some engaging facts will help the conversation continue

7. Never the Naked Job
• Same concept as 15

8. Never the Naked Introduction
• When introducing someone else, same as 15) and 16)

9. Be a word detective
• Pay attention to the conversation, some words just might give you a clue into what they prefer to talk about.

10. Swiveling Spotlight
• If you let the other person keep talking about themselves, they won’t notice you’ve barely talked and will find you more interesting

11. Parroting
• If you don’t know what to say, parroting or repeating what your conversation partner has said, will put the ball write in their court, essentially asking them to elaborate further and you can continue listening

12. Encore
• Best sound for a performer is “Encore!”, you can do the same by asking your conversation partner to repeat an appropriate story to a group of people

13. Accentuate the positive
• When first meeting someone, keep the skeletons in the closet

14. Latest news
• You should always be up to date to latest news, so you have something to talk about

Summary

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Talking like a VIP

1. Don’t ask what do you do
• Instead, opt for “how do you spend most of your time?”

2. The nutshell resume
• Let a different true story about your personal life roll off your tongue for each listener

3. Personal thesaurus
• Expand your vocabulary, by noticing common phrases you use and finding synonyms

4. Kill the quick “me too”
• Don’t reveal you have something in common so quickly, it’ll be more impressive

5. CommYOUnication
• Start every appropriate sentence with “You”, more likely to get a positive response

6. The exclusive smile
• When greeting a group of people, greet each with a distinct smile.

7. Don’t touch a cliche with a 10 foot pole

8. Use techniques of motivational speakers such as humor or understanding context

9. Call a spade a spade
• Don’t hide behind euphemisms

10. Trash the teasing
• Don’t make a joke at someone’s expense

11. It’s the receivers ball
• Before giving news, keep the receiver in mind and deliver appropriately

12. The broken record
• When someone persists in asking you about an unwelcome subject, just repeat your original answer in same voice and same tone of voice.

13. Big shots don’t slobber over celebrities
• Don’t compliment their work, simply say their work has given you pleasure. e.g. you meet a YouTuber rather hear how his latest video inspired you than how good you think their video is (they know it’s good)

14. Never the naked thank you
• Always accompany “Thank you for…” instead of "Thank You”

Summary

How to be an Insider in any crowd

1. Scramble Therapy
• Once a month, or one weekend out of 4 in a month, do something you’ve never done before

2. Learn a little bit of “jobletygook”
• This is the language of the insider, best way is to ask an insider friend the lingo

3. Bearing their hot button
• Know the most pressing issue in their industry or the hot button topic

4. Read their rags
• Read magazines pertaining to the industry you’ll be encountering

5. Clear customs
• Get a book on customs, so you don’t commit taboos

6. Bluffing for bargain
• Your prices are lower if you can talk the talk and know the industry.
• Talk to several vendors to understand lingo, then talk the one you’re targeting

Instant Rapport

1. Be a copy class
• Watch people and copy their movements.
• People gravitate towards those similar to them

2. Echoing
• Repeat what they say, hearing their words out of your mouth

3. Potent Imaging
• Evoke you listener’s interests or lifestyles and use analogies from their world not your own.
• e.g. to a musician, I hear you. To a gamer, GG

4. Employ empathizer
• Vocalize complete sentences to show your understanding

5. Anatomically correct empathizer
• Use visual, auditory, and empathizers according to your partner

6. The premature we
• Create sensation of intimacy, by saying “we”.
• e.g. we should go to this place

7. Instant History
• To make meeting a stranger less strange, search for a special moment you shared previously

Power of Praise from Folly of Flattery

1. Grapevine Glory
• A compliment one hears is never as exciting as one that’s overheard.

2. Carrier Pigeon
• Be a carrier of good news and kudos

3. Implied magnificence
• Throw a few comments into your conversation that presuppose something positive about your partner

4. Accidental Audition
• Become an undercover complimenter

5. Killer Compliment
• Search for one attractive, specific, unique quality they have
• At the end of the conversation, look them in the eye, say their name, and compliment
• Deliver your compliment in private, make your compliment credible, only one per half year per person

6. Little strokes
• caress them will little verbal strokes

7. The knee-jerk wow
• you must compliment someone when they finish a feat

8. Boomeranging
• Compliment someone back immediately
• That’s very kind of you to say

9. Tombstone Technique
• Ask people what they want to be engraved on their tombstones
• When the moment is right, say I appreciate/love you with the words from before

10. Talking Gesture
• If you want to come off as interesting on the phone, you need to vocalize your gestures

11. Name Shower
• People pay more attention when you use their names on the phone

12. Oh Wow it’s you!
• Answer the phone warmly and smile enough to let the happiness spill into your voice

13. The sneaky screen
• If you are screening your calls, say you’ll put them right through, and apologize for not being able to push through, so the caller doesn’t feel screened.

14. Salute the spouse or secretary
• Identifying and greeting the person picking up the phone is important

15. What color is your time?
• Always begin your conversation about timing (recruiters do this a lot)

16. Constantly changing outgoing messages
• If you use voicemail (change the outgoing message) - seems outdated

17. You 10 sec audtion
• Use your voicemail as 10 sec audition as to why call you back

18. Ho Hum Caper
• Use “he” or “she” whenever you call a VIP. This makes their secretary think that you are buddies with their boss. Try saying, “Hi, Bob Smith here, is she in?”

19. I hear the other line
• Acknowledge noise in the background immediately and ask if they have to attend to it

20. Instant Reply
• Record your business conversations and listen to them back to check for anything you missed

Work the room like a politician

1. Munch or Mingle
• When in parties never hold food or drinks, as it becomes a hindrance to the person you are speaking with. Eat before

2. Rubberneck the Room
• When you arrive at the gathering, stop dramatically at the door and survey the scene.

3. Be the chooser, not the choosee
• Do not stand around at a party, go up to someone, even if it’s not the person you want to meet the most, your time will come.

4. Come Hither Hands
• Keeping your hands and arms open will subliminally draw people to you

5. Tracking
• Remember details in other people’s conversations and use them in your next one

6. Business Card Dossier
• Take notes of people you talk to, you can write them on their business card, but you can show your knowledge next time

7. Eyeball Selling
• Keep your eyes open for customer’s and friend’s signals

How to break most treacherous glass ceiling: sometimes people are tigers

1. See no bloopers
• Ignore bloopers, gaffes of other people

2. Lend a helping tongue
• When someone get’s cut off or interrupted in their story, help them get back on track by saying “So what happened after…”

3. Bare the buried WIFM
• Give them the benefits, reveal what’s in it for them when calling for a meeting

4. Let ‘Em Savor the Flavor
• Let your friends savor the benefits of doing you a favor, at least 24 hrs, before asking for another favor.

5. Tit for (wait…) for tat
• If someone owes you something, give them ample time before asking for it back

6. Parties are for Praters
• Parties are for fun and pleasantries, save the business for a different setting

7. Dinner’s for dining
• Dinner is also for pleasantries, don’t bring up business

8. Chance Encounters are for chitchat
• If you have a sensitive encounter, keep it to mellow and light.

9. Empty their tanks
• If you need information, let people have their entire say first, only then will they have the capacity to listen to what you need

10. Echo the Emo
• Whenever you need facts about an emotional situation, let them emote. Empathize like mad with their emotions

11. My Goof, Your Gain
• If you goof, make it so that someone else benefits it from it

12. Leave an escape hatch
• When you catch someone lying or exaggerating, don’t confront them directly. Unless it is your responsibility to catch or correct them, let them out in one piece and don’t gaze upon it again.

13. Buttercups in their boss
• Best way to get store clerk, hair barber, special attention in the future. Send your compliments to their boss about them.

14. Lead the listeners
• Everyone wants approval, be the first to give it.

15. The great scorecard in the sky
• Everyone has an invisible scorecard, players with lower score pays deference to players with higher score