Magic Words

using the present tense increases impact because it changes how audiences see whatever was shared. Rather than a personal opinion based on limited experience, present tense suggests communicators are confident enough to make a general assertion about the state of the world. This isn’t just how something was, it’s how it is, and will be. It’s not ju

Shoulds are great for resolving questions of right and wrong.

FIRST SET OF QUESTIONS Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest? Would you like to be famous? In what way? Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why? What would constitute a “perfect” day for you? When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else? If you were able to

Deep self-disclosure requires social connection. But to get to that social connection, people need to have disclosed things about themselves previously. This catch-22 is part of the reason why the Fast Friends procedure is so effective. Rather than jumping to the heavy stuff right away, it eases people in, encouraging gradual self-disclosure.

a “lower-status” speaker who didn’t hesitate was perceived more positively than a “higher-status” speaker who did. Style trumped status.

Personal pronouns take ownership. So whether we should use them or not depends on how much responsibility we want for whatever we’re talking about.

fourth type of magic words: what’s known as linguistic concreteness. Three ways to apply it are to: (1) make people feel heard, (2) make the abstract concrete, and (3) know when it’s better to be abstract.

It’s often been said that there are no stupid questions. But there are certainly better and worse ones. Questions help us collect information, but they also communicate things about us, direct the flow of conversations, and build social bonds. Consequently, we need to understand which questions to ask and when to ask them.

Speaking with power makes people seem confident. It makes them seem more certain, self-assured, and knowledgeable, which makes audiences more likely to listen and change their minds.3