Have you ever been in a relationship with somebody, and you wanted to tell them something, but you just didn’t know how? And then when you finally got up the confidence, it came out all jumbled and confused?
Most people have experiences like this, a lot.
Being able to explain yourself, both congruently, and respectfully is a very worthy skill to have.
Most people, when they talk, they have a mix of half-baked ideas in their heads, and then they kind of spit them out in random order using a ad-hoc mix of “word salad.”
It’s no wonder that most of us have a hard time getting understood.
There’s plenty of jokes (about men, women, Americans, fill-in-the-blank people) where there’s a list of what they say, what we think they mean, and what they really mean.
One way to ensure you get your point across is to make sure you know what outcome you’re after.
That way, it doesn’t really matter how or what you say, so long as you keep at it until you get your outcome.
For example, if you’re in sales, your outcome is obviously to get the sale. So you just keep talking, using whatever tricks you’ve got up your sleeve, and adjusting your communication based on the feedback you get.
Do this with enough rapport, and after having elicited what the customer wants, and you’ll do pretty good.
If you’re aiming to get a number from a cute guy or girl, the same basic strategy applies. Get some rapport, use whatever communication skills you’ve learned, and keep trying different stuff, so long as it’s moving you closer and closer to your goal.
If something moves you further away from your goal (like they get a surprised and shocked look on their face) simply backtrack, and start over.
So long as you’ve got a clear outcome of what you want, the strategy is simple. Try anything. Keep doing more of what works, and less of what doesn’t.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t have clear outcomes. They are usually a mix of what we want, and “not getting rejected.” And the “not getting rejected” is usually on an unconscious level, so it can mess with us without us really knowing what’s going on.
We just get feelings of anxiety during the conversation, which messes up our ability to get what we want.
Luckily, once you understand that the sources of our fears are not only false, but easy to get rid of, you can unleash you conversational power, easily slipping in and out of conversations with pretty much anybody, and gently steering the conversation where you both want it to go.
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