How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships

Big Winners know how to give bad news to people. They also know how not to give any news to anyone, even when people are pressuring them.

I call it Hello Old Friend. When meeting someone, play a mental trick on yourself. In your mind’s eye, see him or her as an old friend, someone you had a wonderful relationship with years ago. But somehow you lost track of your friend. You tried so hard to find your good buddy, but there was no listing in the phone book. No information on-line. Non

Facts speak. Emotions shout. Whenever you need facts from people about an emotional situation, let them emote. Hear their facts but empathize like mad with their emotions. Smearing on the EMO is often the only way to calm their emotional storm.

Remember, repeating an action makes a habit. Your habits create your character. And your character is your destiny. May success be your destiny.

In your next communication, toss off a reference to the favourite restaurant, film, movie, drink, hometown, high school prize. Or reprieve the laugh over the great joke.

Another way to warm hearts and win friends is to become a carrier pigeon of news items that might interest the recipient. Call, mail, or e-mail people with information they might find interesting. If your friend Ned is a furniture designer in North Carolina and you see a big article in the Los Angeles Times about furniture trends, fax it to him. If

Do you have a store clerk, accountant, law firm junior partner, tailor, auto mechanic, maitre d’, massage therapist, kid’s teacher – or any other worker you want special attention from in the future? The surefire way to make them care enough to give you their very best is send a Buttercup to their boss.

Don’t flash an immediate smile when you greet someone, as though anyone who walked into your line of sight would be the beneficiary. Instead, look at the other person’s face for a second. Pause. Soak in their persona. Then let a big, warm, responsive smile flood over your face and overflow into your eyes. It will engulf the recipient like a warm wa

If you want to come across as an entirely credible Somebody, try to squelch all extraneous movement when your communication counts. I call the technique Limit the Fidget.