Superhuman Social Skills: A Guide to Being Likeable, Winning Friends, and Building Your Social Circle

There are four main channels being communicated on at all times: content, meta, emotion, and status.

Consider what about you makes you valuable as a friend, and whenever you're in a new social situation, think about which of your assets will most be appreciated by that group and work on conveying them. Do it early in the interaction and then move on to getting to know everyone else.

When you are introduced to someone or put into a social situation where people don't know you, your first goal should be to convey as quickly as possible what makes you interesting and worth knowing.

A master of communication must be able to have two major conversations (content and meta), while maintaining two minor conversations (emotion and status). This is no exaggeration.

Your goal when telling a story is to convey something noteworthy about yourself in a way that is enjoyable to the other party or parties. You want for it to be a good time for them, and for it to reflect well upon you. This should be your primary motivation when you begin to tell a story.

People ask questions when they want to hear more from you, and stop asking questions when they want less.

Stories are best when they are brought up in context. That context can be time-based (“Guess what happened to me just now?”) or topic-based.

The way we interact with others is so core to our experience in life that we equate it to who we are. And there's some truth to that, too. How we portray ourselves to others will define their experience of who we are.

By ensuring that you're always a net addition, even if you're not a huge one, you will dramatically increase the number of events to which you are invited.