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    Personal Evolution 4-Book Box Set: Likability, Charisma, Productivity, Critical Thinking, & Assertiveness
    Personal Evolution 4-Book Box Set: Likability, Charisma, Productivity, Critical Thinking, & Assertiveness
    Personal Evolution 4-Book Box Set: Likability, Charisma, Productivity, Critical Thinking, & Assertiveness
    Ebook602 pages8 hours

    Personal Evolution 4-Book Box Set: Likability, Charisma, Productivity, Critical Thinking, & Assertiveness

    By Patrick King

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    About this ebook

    4 bestselling books - 900 pages of actionable and practical material - at a huge discount.



    #1: The Science of Likability: 60 Evidence-Based Methods to Radiate Charisma, Make a Powerful Impression, Win Friends, and Trigger Attraction [2019 Edition]
    - Understand human psychology and the elements of great first impressions and deep friendships.
    - Learn how to be more likable, charming, conversationally quick, and desirable.
    #2: Take Rapid Action: Get Productive, Motivated, & Energized; Stop Overthinking & Procrastinating
    - Tactics to beat procrastination and achieve your goals more quickly and efficiently - even if you're super lazy.
    - The best psychological techniques for quick action and productivity.
    #3: The Art of Everyday Assertiveness: Speak Up. Set Boundaries. Say No. Take Back Control. Get What You Want.
    - How to say no to people, how to stand your ground, and how to finally ask for what you want.
    - How to set your personal and emotional boundaries, and avoid toxic people.
    #4: The Art of Clear Thinking: Mental Models for Better Reasoning, Judgment, Analysis, and Learning. Upgrade Your Intellectual Toolkit.
    - How to see reality and avoid common/advanced thinking errors.
    - Techniques to understand more deeply and never be fooled.
    Scroll up and click the BUY NOW Button.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublishdrive
    Release dateApr 27, 2020
    Personal Evolution 4-Book Box Set: Likability, Charisma, Productivity, Critical Thinking, & Assertiveness
    Author

    Patrick King

    Patrick King is a social interaction specialist/dating, online dating, image, and communication and social skills coach based in San Francisco, California. His work has been featured on numerous national publications such as Inc.com, and he’s achieved status as a #1 Amazon best-selling dating and relationships author. He writes frequently on dating, love, sex, and relationships. Learn more about Patrick at his website, patrickkingconsulting.com.

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      Book preview

      Personal Evolution 4-Book Box Set - Patrick King

      Assertiveness

      Personal Evolution 4-Book Box Set:

      Likability, Charisma, Productivity, Critical Thinking, and Assertiveness

      By Patrick King

      Social Interaction and Conversation Coach at www.PatrickKingConsulting.com

      As a FREE show of appreciation to my readers, I’ve got TWO great resources for you:

      >> CLICK HERE For The Flawless Interaction Checklist and Better Conversations Worksheet! <<

      The Checklist describes in-depth the 7 essential components to exceptional interactions and conversations between you and everyone from a stranger to your partner—and The Worksheet puts a few of those components to the test with practice exercises that will instantly upgrade any conversation.

      Learn how to:

      ·       Make people comfortable

      ·       Connect easily in any context

      ·       Develop killer eye contact

      ·       Prepare for any social situation

      ·       Appear as intuitive as a mind reader

      ·       Never run out of things to say

      ·       Practice and drill all of the above

      CLICK HERE to download your FREE copy now!

      Book 1: The Science of Likability:

      60 Evidence-Based Methods to Radiate Charisma, Make a Powerful Impression, Win Friends, and Trigger Attraction

      Book 2: Take Rapid Action:

      Get Productive, Motivated, & Energized; Stop Overthinking & Procrastinating [Second Edition]

      Book 3: The Art of Clear Thinking:

      Mental Models for Better Reasoning, Judgment, Analysis, and Learning. Upgrade Your Intellectual Toolkit.

      Book 4: The Art of Everyday Assertiveness:

      Speak Up. Say No. Set Boundaries. Take Back Control. Get What You Want.

      The Science of Likability:

      60 Evidence-Based Methods to Radiate Charisma, Make a Powerful Impression, Win Friends, and Trigger Attraction

      Table of Contents

      Personal Evolution 4-Book Box Set: Likability, Charisma, Productivity, Critical Thinking, and Assertiveness

      The Science of Likability: 60 Evidence-Based Methods to Radiate Charisma, Make a Powerful Impression, Win Friends, and Trigger Attraction

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1. How to Make People Desire Your Presence

      Context-Dependent Memories

      The Power of Association

      The Positivity Spreader

      Shut Up and Let ’Em Talk!

      Chapter 2. How to Create the Foundation of Friendship

      Equity Within Relationships

      Similarity Breeds Liking

      Three Stages of Friendship

      Chapter 3. How to Act the Part

      Act First, Think Later

      Follow Pygmalion’s Lead

      See People How They Want to be Seen

      The Chemistry of Friendship

      Chapter 4. How to Be Trustworthy

      More Is Better

      Credibility

      Look into My Eyes

      Chapter 5. How to Make People Lower Their Guards

      Oops, I Did It Again

      One Ratio to Rule Them All

      Advice, Please

      Convert Enemies into Friends

      Chapter 6. How to Salvage a Social Situation

      No Such Thing as Too Much Information

      Cracking People Open

      Chapter 7. How to Be Charismatic and Funny

      The Speed of Wit

      What’s So Funny?

      Violate Me, But Only a Little Bit

      Chapter 8. How to Gossip, Chit-Chat, and Communicate

      Gossip as Grooming

      When Yes Means No

      Summary Guide

      Bibliography

      Take Rapid Action: Get Productive, Motivated, & Energized; Stop Overthinking & Procrastinating [Second Edition]

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1. Stop Overthinking

      Follow the Ostrich’s Lead

      The Premortem Analysis

      The Don’t-Do List

      Accept the Uncertainty of Action

      Chapter 2. Err on the Side of Action

      Get a Little Uncomfortable

      Tiny Steps

      The 40-70 Rule

      Beat Indecision

      Limit Consumption for More Production

      Chapter 3. The Take-Action Mindset

      Motivation Follows Action

      No More Zero Days

      Solution Versus Problem Mindset

      Intentions Versus Actions

      Important Versus Urgent

      Chapter 4. Maximize Momentum

      Banish Your Excuses

      Temptation Bundling

      Improve Your Environment

      The If-Then Technique

      Single-tasking

      25 Minutes at a Time

      Chapter 5. Beating Procrastination

      9 Subscales of Failure

      Task Versus Ego Orientation

      The Art of Clear Thinking: Mental Models for Better Reasoning, Judgment, Analysis, and Learning. Upgrade Your Intellectual Toolkit.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1. Intellectual Honesty

      The Armored Ego

      What is Intellectual Honesty (and Dishonesty)?

      Obstacles to Honest Thought

      On Forming Opinions

      Chapter 2. (Don’t) Trust Your Instincts

      Feelings Aren’t Facts

      Perspective Isn’t Reality

      Perception is Biased

      Memories are Wrong

      The Laws of Logic

      Chapter 3. The Open Mind

      Battle Confirmation Bias

      Follow the Evidence

      Battle Social Influence

      Chapter 4. Greats Think Alike

      Elon Musk & SpaceX

      Darwin’s Golden Rule

      Descartes, Doubt, and the Scientific Method

      Einstein and What if?

      Socrates the Know-It-All

      Summary Guide

      The Art of Everyday Assertiveness: Speak Up. Say No. Set Boundaries. Take Back Control. Get What You Want.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1. The Balance of Assertiveness

      Asserting Your Needs

      Your Personal Bill of Rights

      Chapter 2. Damaging Beliefs and Damaging People

      Toxic Beliefs

      BLUE Your Beliefs

      Chapter 3. How to Ask for What You Want and Get It

      They Should Have Known

      Symbolic Value

      Passive-Aggressiveness

      Becoming Assertive the Right Way

      Chapter 4. How to Say NO Without Tension

      Chapter 5. Asserting Boundaries

      Choosing and Enforcing Your Boundaries

      Toxic Takers

      Chapter 6. Understanding Your Patterns

      Communication Self-Assessment

      The Need To Apologize

      Chapter 7. Assertiveness Action Plan

      Summary Guide

      Introduction

      Like many college underclassmen who had no idea what they wanted to study, I chose to major in psychology.

      I thought it was a good default choice because the knowledge theoretically had wide application and could transfer to any other field. After all, psychology is the study of people, and I would be dealing with people anywhere I went, right? It also didn’t hurt that I heard the vast majority of the classes had open-book, multiple-choice midterms and finals.

      So I checked the box next to Bachelor of Science in Psychology and went on with my day. It was something I devoted all of ten minutes of thought to, but in reality, I could have done much worse. Psychology has turned out to be incredibly applicable to my life, relationships, and career.

      Psychology isn’t about reading minds or interpreting dreams, though that’s the impression some people may have. It’s more accurate to say that psychology is the study of why people do the things they do—beyond the obvious reasons you can see on the surface and often beyond people’s own understanding and consciousness.

      This has obvious applications, such as seeing why some advertisements are more effective than others, why a child will rush to do something they are explicitly told not to do, and the plain effect on behavior that positive and negative associations can have.

      But the biggest takeaway from my degree was that so many of our decisions are made completely subconsciously and without any awareness on our part. Our conscious thought follows our subconscious will, and it often isn’t until far after we act that we figure out what actually happened. We may think we are acting logically and reasonably in a situation—we may even use defense mechanisms to defend and justify our actions—but this is just our subconscious getting its way.

      For example, one of the more famous experiments in psychology was called the Little Albert experiment, conducted in 1920 by the famous psychologist John Watson. It involved the eponymous baby, Little Albert, who was presented with a white rat and nothing else. He had no reaction, positive or negative. Albert had yet to be conditioned or socialized in any way regarding rats.

      Next, the researchers paired the rat with a loud crashing noise, which frightened Albert and made him cry in most instances. After only a couple of exposures pairing the rat and the crashing noise, Albert was presented with the rat alone again. He reacted as if the crashing noise was also present; he had become afraid of the rat by itself. But if he could talk, he wouldn’t have been able to explain why. He just knew that anything involving the rat was bad.

      He had started associating the rat with the loud noise that frightened him and wasn’t consciously aware of why he was suddenly recoiling and crying whenever he saw the rat by itself.

      On the one hand, this tendency to be quickly conditioned to avoid negative situations is something that probably has evolutionary roots. If you didn’t quickly learn that furry, growling animals with large teeth were bad news, you likely didn’t stay alive too long. Regardless, Little Albert provided insight into how something seemingly so subtle and unrelated could affect people’s actions in very real ways.

      If people can be subconsciously conditioned about negative associations, aren’t there ways that people can be conditioned to react positively to objects and people? What if Little Albert was conditioned to associate positive things with the rat, such as food or his favorite toy? This would make Albert rejoice upon seeing the rat instead of recoiling in horror. Actually, that was proven in 1897, before Albert was even born.

      This brings us to the most famous psychological experiment of the modern age: Pavlov’s dog. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist, noted that his dog began to salivate when he anticipated a meal.

      So Pavlov began to ring a bell every time he fed his dog, which caused a pairing of the two behaviors: the bell and the dog salivating. When Pavlov started ringing the bell by itself, the dog salivated as if there was actual food coming. Without any real clue as to why, the dog thought he was getting delicious bacon every time he heard the bell. Needless to say, this same effect has been replicated in humans time after time.

      Little Albert and Pavlov’s dog showed us two sides of the same coin—it is possible for us to become both scientifically desired and despised. It’s probably more helpful to focus on the former, and if a bell can create a positive effect on others, there must be additional, more impactful ways of being scientifically likable.

      It’s not that we are simply prone to seeing things where they don’t necessarily exist. In reality, our brains are quite malleable and adaptive, and every adjustment or association our brains see is an attempt at efficiency and energy conservation. We take shortcuts as often as possible, but we usually don’t realize it.

      Actually, that’s exactly what we will seek to take advantage of in this book. My mission is to uncover the most effective, peer-reviewed psychological studies to dig deep and take advantage of what human nature can offer us. Just like our brains take shortcuts to everything else, there certainly exist shortcuts to likability and charm.

      You’ll learn proven ways to make yourself endearing, likable, funny, convincing, persuasive, trustworthy, credible, and instantly magnetic. You’ll learn why we hit it off with some people but never with others; why we feel chemistry with some people and instantly mutter, Ugh, not them, in the presence of others; and why we instinctively trust some people and check for our wallets around others.

      Using these tactics can certainly be seen as fake or manipulative. I can recognize and sympathize with that perspective. Anytime you are presenting something besides the genuine you and trying to do something slightly sneaky, underhanded, or with ulterior motives, you can feel icky. This is one of the main reasons many people do not prefer sales jobs—there is usually an undercurrent of becoming someone you are not in order to reach the goal of selling something. But my experience as a social skills and dating coach leads me to a different conclusion. Not everyone is born with what you might call social or emotional intelligence, and sometimes people just need a guideline to understanding and connecting with others. It’s no different than thinking about how to prepare for a job interview or a date, and people wear makeup and dress better to make good impressions on people. Indeed, it’s no different than asking a friend for advice on, well, any interpersonal matter. It all serves the same goal.

      These studies run the gamut from confirmatory and common sense to shocking and counterintuitive and everything in between. Even the common-sense studies are important because, after all, common sense is not really so common. We all live through only the perspective that our experiences show us, and what is common sense to us (for instance, being raised in a rich family and knowing how yachts work) is certainly not common sense to those without our same experiences (for instance, being raised in poverty and never having seen the beach before). Something only seems obvious to us because we have seen it in action, and then you may realize that your sense of common sense amounts to simple anecdotal evidence.

      And besides, if common sense was truly common, people would generally make better decisions on a daily basis.

      On the other hand, some you might flat-out deny and not believe what the studies say. But just as heliocentrism (the theory that the sun revolved around the earth instead of the other way around) was thought to be heretical and wrong, sometimes you just have to follow the documented evidence and let go of your preconceptions. Just because it is not immediately obvious doesn’t mean that the figurative dog is not being compelled to salivate.

      All of that and more is The Science of Likability.

      Chapter 1. How to Make People Desire Your Presence

      Why do some people instantly like us while others seem to be offended by our very existence?

      Is hitting it off and becoming friends with people purely a roll of the dice, or is there something more we can do to control our chances of connecting with people?

      For many people, likability does seem to be a game of chance. If you happen to sit next to someone who is similar to you, and who also happens to share a hobby or hometown, then you will have something to connect over. But statistically, that can’t happen with every new friend we make, so things aren’t quite adding up. As we saw from Little Albert and Pavlov’s dog, we are more influenceable than we might assume.

      People who see likability as completely organic and natural are somewhat misguided because cultivating a feeling of likability around yourself is just like any other emotion—it can be triggered, summoned, eliminated, and ultimately engineered. If we want to make someone angry with us, we certainly know what to do and how to adjust our behavior. If we want to make someone cry, we also know how to create that feeling. Likability is not much different; we push psychological buttons, but for a far more desirable outcome.

      We all have specific and subtle triggers that influence the way we view others and how they view us. Most of them are minuscule, subconscious, and mired in the minutiae—but these are the details that actually make the difference. If you went into a restaurant and saw only one cockroach hiding in the corner, well, it might be minuscule but still quite important.

      The first chapter of the book focuses on the small details that comprise our first impressions, an integral part of likability. First impressions run deep, are not subject to change, and are your first opportunity to be likable, so this is as good a place to start as any.

      Context-Dependent Memories

      Memories have long been found to be context-dependent, first by Godden and Baddeley in 1975 in their breakthrough publication Context-Dependent Memory in Two Natural Environments: On Land and Underwater, which means memories are heavily linked to the environment, events, sounds, feelings, and even smells that were present during the formation of the memory. The researchers found that either being on land or underwater led subjects to recall different sets of memories.

      We can see this in our everyday lives. For instance, this is why so many of us fall into bouts of nostalgia when we hear certain songs—the song is information that is linked to much more than the song itself. This is why smelling a whiff of a buttercream pie takes us back to our grandmother’s homes when we were children.

      This means memory is not a flat representation of a set of events—it’s a holistic, three-dimensional snapshot of everything that was happening at that exact moment in time. Whatever else you were experiencing at the time is linked to the memory and can be used to bring it back up. Our brains act as sponges, not focused lasers, and absorb both consciously and subconsciously.

      Obviously, we don’t always realize this because, by nature, the subconscious is beyond our awareness. But you might recall the feeling when you walk into your old school and suddenly memories come flooding into your brain as if on cue.

      But in fact, a 1994 study by Eich, Macauley, and Ryan titled Mood Dependent Memory for Events of the Personal Past found that memories were also mood-dependent. In other words, the mood we had when the memory was formed is also part of the memory. The information is in there somewhere, and Eich and his associates found that appealing to those hidden aspects of memories allows you to influence people’s moods for the better.

      The researchers created situations to put the participants in either good or bad moods. Then the subjects were given neutral words and asked what type of memories the neutral words evoked. Participants who were in good moods typically recalled positive memories while participants who were in bad moods typically recalled negative memories. And of course, the subsequent memories recalled served to further increase the moods they were in—misery and happiness both grew.

      Memory and mood are closely linked, and influencing one can influence the other. In other words, if we think about happy memories, our mood rises, and if we think about dreadful memories, our mood plummets. By itself, it’s not a huge revelation. If you think about puppies and kittens racing toward a bowl of food, you are likely to smile and laugh and get cheered up.

      But never before had it been shown that our moods can be so intimately tied to memories. It also works in reverse; thus, if we can conjure up memories from a mood, we can use memories to conjure up a mood—and remember that memories are both explicit and subconscious. By understanding this relationship, we can sneakily become more likable. We can’t control people’s moods directly, but we can control the memories that they are thinking about to do it indirectly.

      This is the first step in becoming a presence that people start to crave; if you either (1) directly talk about positive memories or (2) indirectly evoke elements that were present at the time of that positive memory (recall how holistic and three-dimensional memory is), people will slip into the mood they were in during that memory.

      For instance, suppose you know your friend Dorothy’s happiest moment in life was when she got married to her beloved beau Brian. Her wedding was in a garden with lots of balloons, pillows, and flowers. She had a themed wedding where everyone wore black and silver as a tribute to her favorite band, KISS. Presumably she was in a good mood that day.

      So what would you do to improve Dorothy’s mood? You could of course mention her wedding and talk about how amazing it was and how beautiful she looked. But that’s something you already know and don’t need research to teach you.

      Instead of that, you would indirectly display or reference things that would remind her of that day. You might play KISS music in the background, you might talk to her outside in a garden, and you might wear a black and silver shirt. You might even bring up a wedding you were at recently, since she has such a fond memory of weddings. Maybe none of these things in isolation would impact Dorothy’s mood, but taken together, these are powerful, indirect reminders and cues for one of her best memories. She will pick up on that and her mood will perk up—though she may not understand why.

      One more time for posterity: because our memories comprise everything our five senses can absorb, including our moods, directly or indirectly referencing that memory can lead to an improvement in mood.

      How can we wield this information? If you get a hint that someone is in need of a mood boost, you can talk about things, people, and events that were present when they were in fabulous moods. Reference their greatest triumphs or fondest memories. If you want to amplify someone’s good mood to elation, then do the same thing.

      Talk to people in terms of what makes them happy, and it will make them happier. It’s not a radical notion, and you didn’t necessarily need a scientific study to demonstrate this commonsensical approach. But now you know why it works, which allows you to be more intentional about it. For instance, if we want to improve someone’s mood, our first inclination might be to simply make a joke or create a distraction like an entire pizza and quart of ice cream. Those approaches are attempting to distract from the poor mood while referencing memories is a direct means of changing it.

      Take advantage of your knowledge of someone and pull them out of the doldrums by triggering their greatest hits.

      If you know James had a blast the last time he went skiing, bring up a story he’s told about it. Become his cheerleader. Have him retell it to you. Ask him about the logistics and whether or not he would recommend that particular ski lodge. Talk about the games he played that weekend. Casually reference a video of skiing tricks. Likewise, if James loved biking, you could mention his greatest biking adventure, his longest ride, his favorite bike, his biking buddies, or his latest gear purchase.

      It makes sense that people like to discuss their favorite topics, but now there is a deeper psychological understanding of why and what it does to someone. Like Pavlov’s dog, this isn’t a process that we are fully aware of until we reach the end result of suddenly salivating.

      Eich’s study was about influencing people’s moods, not necessarily improving them. In the context of likability, the only way you should be influencing people’s moods is positively, but this subconscious superpower can be used to take people’s moods in any direction you wish. It just won’t necessarily give you a pleasant outcome and subsequent association. No one is drawn to the person that reminds them of the last funeral they went to.

      The Power of Association

      There is an additional benefit to improving someone’s mood repeatedly: the power of association.

      If you play your cards right, people will subconsciously start associating their happy moods with you. You become part of their pleasant memory, and they begin to be drawn to you without a conscious understanding of why. When you are successful in creating a happy mood or dragging someone out of the dumps consistently, they will begin to associate you with those positive feelings.

      As you’ll discover, one of the running themes of this book is that human beings may appear complex and nuanced, but often we make choices that are incredibly straightforward and predictable—for instance, we will almost always make the decision to avoid pain and seek pleasure. You can come up with many theories about the motivations people have for certain things, but it’s a very streamlined decision-making process the vast majority of the time.

      So we tend to gravitate toward people who make us feel good and away from things that hurt us. We also gravitate toward people and things associated with the people who make us feel good, and this is called classical conditioning. Remember Pavlov’s dog? He would salivate in the presence of positive reinforcement and eventually was conditioned to salivate to only the sound of a bell.

      Byrne and Clore in 1970 with their reward/need satisfaction theory expanded on Pavlov’s findings and discovered that if people are nearby when we feel good, even if they were not involved in creating the positive feelings, eventually we begin to feel good whenever they are around. When people subconsciously begin to associate you with positive moods and emotions, you are going to be the bell that makes people smile without realizing why.

      Creating or being present during people’s great moods is one way to become associated with their happiness and for them to want you around. It’s like if you’re a baker and you need a rare kind of flour for your favorite cake. If you see the rare flour, you know you are going to have a chance to bake your favorite cake. It’s not about the flour, and it’s not about you. It’s what you represent and are associated with.

      The Positivity Spreader

      There are two other main ways through which we can take advantage of being liked because others associate us with great feelings: positivity and compliments.

      The cliché stands true: positivity pays off. In our modern world, there are a lot of unpleasant people, and most people are too absorbed in their own muck to be cheerful to others. You’d be surprised how effective staying in a good mood, putting on a happy face, praising others, and acting positive is. In fact, there is a term for the contagious power of positivity: emotional contagion. This was discovered by Stanley Schachter in 1959 and describes how emotions spread from person to person, both good and bad. Emotions spread like germs or yawns; when you’re happy, people around you become happy. We all infect each other with our emotions if we’re not careful.

      And of course, people enjoy being happy, so they will naturally want to be around the causes of their happiness. They would rather not be dragged into other people’s problems and have to listen to various personal tragedies.

      People will associate positive feelings with you and subconsciously want to spend time around you—it’s the brain’s way of telling them to continue producing endorphins. For instance, suppose you brought donuts to every meeting you attended in the office. People will quickly begin to welcome your presence regardless of the meeting, and they won’t even realize that it may be because of the food instead of your shining personality. Eventually, they’ll just want you around, period. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as that’s where it ends, and they use the donuts as an opportunity to discover your charm and wit.

      Second, we all know that compliments make us more charming. Most people don’t receive compliments on a daily or even weekly basis. By giving someone even a shallow or cursory compliment, you might be 100% of their compliments for the entire week. This isn’t something that will go unnoticed. Compliment them on something shallow (if you must), their personality, or their opinion. Pay attention especially to compliments you can pay in recognizing something that someone has put effort into. Just put someone in a position to say thank you.

      But there’s a deeper level beyond mere flattery that benefits you even more. It’s called spontaneous trait transference. John Skowronski in 1998 coined this term and argued that people will associate to you the compliments and positive adjectives you give to them. If you call someone generous and kind, they will associate you with those traits as well. No, there is no logical connection, just a simple unconscious association. So give compliments more, and it’s a win-win situation for you.

      Shut Up and Let ’Em Talk!

      The final piece of the puzzle in creating a subconscious longing for your presence is the age-old piece of advice, likely popularized by Dale Carnegie and his famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People.

      Much of his advice is now derided as common sense, even though the very reason it’s deemed so obvious is because of his book. Perhaps one of his best pieces of advice was simply to get people to talk, or even brag, about themselves, because this will make them enjoy conversing with you. He was quoted as saying, You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Consequently, this is one of the most bandied about pieces of conversation advice.

      It turns out that Carnegie was correct, right down to the biological level. A 2012 study conducted by neuroscientists Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell at Harvard University entitled Disclosing Information About the Self is Intrinsically Rewarding found that our urge to share personal information with others is one of the most fundamental and powerful parts of being human. Brain images showed that sharing information about ourselves triggers the same sensations in our brains that we experience when we eat food and have sex—two behaviors that we are biologically compelled to do. Thus, it seems we are biologically compelled to share and communicate our thoughts.

      One method that the researchers used to determine how much the participants valued being able to talk about themselves was to offer a modest financial incentive to anybody who would answer questions about other people instead. Some of the questions involved casual subjects about hobbies and personal tastes while others were about personality traits, such as intelligence, curiosity, or aggression. The researchers found that many of the participants were willing to pass up on the money, preferring the rewarding feelings of self-disclosure over financial gain. In fact, the average participant willingly gave up between 17% and 25% of their possible earnings just so that they could reveal personal information.

      Then they used a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner (fMRI) to observe what parts of the brain were most excited when the subjects were talking about themselves. Again, they found a correlation between self-disclosure and heightened activity in brain regions belonging to the mesolimbic dopamine system—again, the same region that’s associated with the rewarding and satisfying feeling we get from food, money, and sex. It even happens when we speak about ourselves without anyone listening to us.

      That means that each party in a conversation or social setting is highly incentivized to talk about themselves from a neurochemical perspective. Dale Carnegie was in fact correct. How can we utilize this knowledge for our social success?

      Talking about yourself to some extent is natural, both biologically and within the flow of a conversation. It’s estimated that some 40% of what we say relates to expressing our own thoughts and feelings, and that’s because it is highly rewarding to do so. So change that ratio.

      The most important step for most will be to start imposing limits on themselves. Yes, it feels good to talk about yourself as the studies have shown, but when you do so, you are depriving others of the space and time to talk about themselves. And in the end, the goal is to make yourself more likable, not necessarily to feel better about social interaction.

      Be curious about others, ask them questions that give them the opportunity to brag, and generally let the conversation focus on them. Concentrate on their strengths and assist them in painting themselves in a positive light. Be a good listener and encourage them to continue talking about themselves.

      When’s the last time you asked someone five questions in a row without interrupting or interjecting with your own anecdote? What about ten questions? This is the exact type of interaction that feels good to people that we routinely deny them because we can’t resist our own pleasure of sharing.

      Takeaways:

      Most people tend to rely on luck or happenstance to strike up friendships and be likable. They are passive and waiting. This is the wrong approach because it undermines your own abilities and limits you unnecessarily. The power is in your hands, especially when armed with subtleties and nuances in this book, to influence our likability and charm.

      One way we can make people crave our presence is through memory’s context-dependent nature. This means that a memory is a three-dimensional snapshot of everything present at the time the memory was formed, including your emotional mood. Thus, to improve someone’s mood, we can directly or indirectly reference happy memories.

      Eventually, after being present for people’s great moods, you yourself will become part of the positive memory. This is through the process of association, and it functions like the bell making Pavlov’s dog salivate. You will become that bell over time.

      Positivity makes a bigger impact than you realize. People like being around other happy people, sure. But through the process of emotional contagion, your positivity will quite literally infect others. You will literally be the source of people’s happiness if you act the part.

      We all inherently know that compliments and flattery will get you just about anywhere. But there’s another way that it benefits you and makes your presence important—spontaneous trait transfer. This is the phenomenon where whatever traits or adjectives you are using to compliment others will be applied to you. No, it’s not logical and it doesn’t really make sense, but that’s how our brains subconsciously make connections sometimes.

      Finally, the art of disclosing feels as good as sex and food—to our brains. People like to talk about themselves and they derive a lot of pleasure from it. So encourage this. Ask questions, listen well, and keep the focus on other people. Make sure that you shut up from time to time.

      Chapter 2. How to Create the Foundation of Friendship

      It’s rude to look at your friendships and evaluate them based on how much you are benefiting from them. In essence, are your friendships and relationships purely transactional? Nobody likes to think this way—at least not out loud.

      We would love to imagine that we are friends with our friends because they suit us the best, we enjoy their company, and they know us inside and out. We all inhabit a special place in each other’s hearts because of our unique sensibilities and emotional bonds, right? It sounds nice to say, and it’s the politically correct version of how to describe friendships, new and old.

      But in reality, people subconsciously evaluate their relationships based on how much value they receive. It’s important to mention that value is subjective and doesn’t necessarily have to be in the form of any material or financial gain. Of course, we do value people who are valuable connections based on their wealth or status, but we also value people if they make us laugh, make us feel good, or act as our emotional crutches. We must be getting something out of it if we want to preserve or grow it.

      Most value and exchange in a friendship or relationship is usually measured in emotional terms. If people make us feel positive emotions, they have value to us, and we want them around because of their emotional value proposition. If they make us feel negative emotions, then we might not want them around, no matter how much they would be able to help our careers.

      So it’s fair to say relationships are inherently a bit transactional. We get what we want from people in some form or fashion, and our friends get what they want from us in a similar fashion. If you spend time with someone whose company you don’t enjoy, but these events always occur on their private yacht, it might be acceptable because you’re hanging out on a yacht. But remove the yacht, and what are you getting in this transaction?

      Here’s the thing about transactions: they only feel good if they are relatively equal. We all put a certain amount of effort in, and we have expectations about the matching return. One-sided deals or relationships feel bad. Emotionally, we’re happiest when the give and take, or cost and benefit, are roughly equal. You wouldn’t sell someone your car for $2 because it would be spectacularly one-sided and you’d feel ripped off. You also wouldn’t buy someone’s car for $2 because you’d feel guilty and immoral. However, you would sell someone your car for a fair price or trade them for the motorcycle you’ve always wanted.

      If a transaction is one-sided, we feel used and taken advantage of or predatory and vicious. If you always give someone a ride to work and they never return the favor or acknowledge your effort, you aren’t going to feel good about the relationship anymore because the transaction is unbalanced.

      It seems cold to categorize relationships thusly, but this is just a prerequisite of being a good person, much less being likable or a good friend. People pay close attention to what they put in versus what they get out, and it contributes to an overall impression we have about others.

      A study showed that people both subconsciously and consciously keep track of the exchange of favors in their relationships—and those are the happiest relationships. You can use this knowledge to your advantage in becoming a more likable person, as well as one who never gets taken advantage of.

      Equity Within Relationships

      Walster, Walster, and Berscheid proposed the theory of equal relationships in 1978. They investigated how relationships rife with inequity functioned and found that the best and happiest relationships have an internal score sheet as to who is sacrificing and serving more. In these relationships, both sides sought to keep it equal.

      More broadly, the study helped define what came to be known as equity theory—the tendency for humans to compare what they have or receive in relation to what others have or receive.

      As mentioned, people don’t like to feel like predators or prey. Rather, they prefer to feel like respected equals, even though this contrasts with our natural inclination to attain as much as possible. This can range from monetary (I’ll pay for tonight if you pay for tomorrow) to emotional tradeoffs (I’ll be your shoulder to cry on if you do the same for me at some point).

      They found people are often driven by a sense of equality, and if someone gets too much or too little, even according to the set rules of engagement, tension and distress are created in the person’s mind. The greater the inequality in a relationship, the greater tension and distress. Therefore, one of the foundations of friendship is a feeling of equality. Without it, you will never even have the opportunity to bond.

      Suppose you are sitting at a table with one friend and there is a small pizza on the table. You both love pizza, so we both want as much as possible. Yet we also know that the pizza should be split in half to acknowledge the other person and show goodwill and consideration toward them. But it’s our favorite type of pizza, and we want all of it and could easily eat it.

      What would happen if you accidentally took an extra slice? You would feel guilty and your friend would probably show restrained annoyance and anger. What about if you took an extra slice on purpose? You would probably feel like a heel, and your friend would be supremely unhappy. This is the case even if our friend were to tell us, I love this pizza, but take as much as you want. We wouldn’t want to upset the balance, and most people would still split the pizza in half. Anything else just feels greedy and inconsiderate.

      What does equity theory mean for us? Should we seek to pull out a scorecard and annotate every time a debt is incurred?

      Surprisingly, yes. If not physically, at least mentally or figuratively. Keeping score as to the equality of your relationships will make you more likable. When you externally acknowledge equity theory and make it known you are fighting your human tendency to take as much as possible, people will appreciate your willingness to think about their desires. If you can keep yourself accountable and actively seek to even the score, you become more likable.

      It doesn’t necessarily have to be so direct as, You bought me coffee last time, so I will buy it today. Remember, the transactional nature of a relationship doesn’t solely concern finances or material possessions—it is subjective. To keep the score even, you should also consider emotional support: listening, time, attention, focus, and any and all other aspects that you value. If someone listens to you for an hour, remember that, in some nebulous way, you owe them a degree of emotional support at another time.

      Underlying everything is the fact that people hate feeling guilty (when they take too much) and also hate feeling taken advantage of (when they give too much). If there is inequality in any measure, both parties will feel one of those emotions. This point basically boils down to being considerate of others’ needs, which is a lesson that many of us need to retake. Understand what they want, know what they want to avoid (giving too much and taking too much), and deliver that to them. Unfortunately, compassion and empathy aren’t second nature to most of us.

      If you see any situations where you benefit more, call them out publicly and make sure to rectify them as soon as possible. This makes the other person know that you pay your debts as soon as possible and are trustworthy and that you actively care about them and don’t want to cheat them. Of course, this also removes the burden of feeling taken advantage of from their head.

      For example, you can eliminate some resentment and injustice when you call out, I can’t believe that you gave me a ride to the airport and I haven’t repaid you yet! Dinner’s on me. Eliminating guilt on the other person’s behalf is trickier because it’s difficult to say something like, Hey, I got you last time we had dinner. Want to even that score? You must tread carefully, because this can sound offensive and entitled.

      If you feel that you are suffering an injustice, it’s a matter of giving people a chance to set things right. If they don’t seize the opportunity, they are failing at creating the foundations of friendship and likability, and they might not be the type of person you want to remain friends with. People are looking for win-win relationships, and you are proactively creating them. They can’t help but feel that you are somebody who will stand up for your rights and that you are not a pushover or someone easily taken advantage of. That’s pretty likable, right?

      Equality and equity is one of the first foundations of friendship. The second foundation of friendship is similarity.

      Similarity Breeds Liking

      To many, bonding with others is a process that occurs over time or as a function of the passage of time. But you can be in a dentist’s chair and undergoing a root canal, thereby spending a good amount of alone time with your dentist, and this is far from bonding.

      To quicken the pace of your bonding (also perhaps known as friendship chemistry, which we will cover later) and become more instantly likable, focus on similarity and familiarity. You’ve probably heard that a mix of the two breeds liking, and it’s so true that this is something we instinctually do already. For instance, what are among the first questions we might ask upon meeting a stranger?

      · Where are you from?

      · Where

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