1. When you first meet people, try to notice their eye color while also smiling at them. It might be because you look for a second or two longer, but all I can tell you is that people really respond to it.
2. Pay attention to people’s feet. If you approach two people in the middle of a conversation, and they only turn their torsos and not their feet, they don’t want you to join in the conversation. Similarly if you are in a conversation with a coworker who you think is paying attention to you and their torso is turned towards you but their feet are facing in another direction, they want the conversation to end.
3. Foot-in-the-door phenomenon. People are more likely to agree to do a task for you if you ask them to do something simpler first. (Gradual Commitment … makes people think you like them). Alternatively you ask them to do an unreasonable task, and they’ll say no, so then you ask for what you wanted, a much more reasonable task, and they’re more likely to agree that way. If you ask someone to do you a small favor, cognitive dissonance will make them believe that because they did that favor, they therefore must like you.
4. If you ask someone a question and they only partially answer just wait. If you stay silent and keep eye contact they will usually continue talking.
5. Chew gum when you’re approaching a situation that would make you nervous, like public speaking or bungee jumping. Apparently, if we’re ‘eating’ something in our brains trips and it reasons ‘I would not be eating if I were in danger. So I’m not in danger’.
