A Powerful Technique to Become Instantly More Likable in Conversations
Make a person feel important and you’ll always be remembered. Here’s how to do that.
Years ago, after a Halloween party in Hollywood, one of our friends invited us up to their place off Sunset Blvd for an afterparty. When we got up to the house, it was deserted, except for one guy who decided to stay home that night to work on his book.
I was dressed up like Prince (complete with basketball), and the guy approached me right away and engaged me by asking me all sorts of questions. I don’t even remember what he asked, but I do remember that I had a great conversation with him, and he seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say.
The next time I heard about Neil Strauss, his book The Game had just become a New York Times Bestseller — the book he was writing the night I met him.
I‘ll never forget that night I met him, and for years I wondered why I held him in such high esteem, even though I can’t even remember what it was we spoke about. All I know is that I talked and talked and talked, and he couldn’t get enough.
No wonder he was considered one of Rolling Stone Magazine’s greatest interviewers. He got people to talk!
The Disraeli Effect
I recall a story I read about two men running to become British Prime Minister during the Victorian era — Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone.
William Gladstone was a very intelligent person and everyone knew it. He certainly had the experience and brains to be Prime Minister.
To be interesting, be interested.
Benjamin Disraeli, on the other hand, wasn’t as brilliant as Gladstone, but he had a certain way with people.
About a week before the election, a woman named Jennie Jerome (Winston Churchill’s mother) had dinner with both men. When asked by a journalist what her impression of the two men was, she responded:
“When I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But when I sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling that I was the cleverest woman.”
