How To Be Popular And Build Yourself A Ready Network Of Friends For Life!
It is not what you know that counts, but whom you know! Few people today
would truly desire to live entirely alone so how can you develop and
grow a steady network of good trustworthy friends and acquaintances on
every level?
The really important things to becoming popular are: to develop yourself
a pleasing personality and to have supreme self confidence. Be a friend
to others and they will want to be a friend to you! Smile!
The most striking example of friendship was revealed to me yesterday. I
like, for all my popularity and many friendships, to take some time out
alone and reflect on my immediate goals and on how I am treading towards
my longer term goals. So I was sitting in a field when up came a small
black and white spaniel. His master was far behind so this spaniel
sniffed round me while I patted his back and tickled his neck.
He decided he liked me, for he sat upon my right foot happily and
patiently, waiting for his master, yet glorying in his new friendship.
We sat there quietly together for perhaps three minutes, yet I felt I
had known him all his life! There was something exquisitely remarkable
in that well pleased confident assuming doggy personality. For a
fraction of time before his master arrived and he moved off, we were
inseparable friends. He completely embodied all there is to learn about
friendship!
First, he was confident that I would like him. He totally accepted
himself as a friendly dog. He wanted to share a closeness. He proposed
an intimacy and fully expected me to respond positively. He enjoyed some
quiet time with me. He left when he wanted to.
Dogs are experts at making friends! And then young children. A child
will look winningly up to you, and slip their hand in yours. There is a
trust, an expectancy, a confidence, a positive mental attitude! There is
no fear, no doubt, no shyness, no lack of self confidence. Both the dog
and the child are artless. They expect! And often, I am sure, they
receive! Can you sense an incredible timeless natural Law at work here?
I want to challenge you today to take on board into your own personality
some of the characteristics of the dog and the child so you too can
enjoy such immediate bonding in your own tentative acquaintances! Take
time to observe dogs and children and decide what characteristics they
are displaying in their communications. Both decide instantly whether or
not they like and trust a person. But how do they achieve this intuitive
state?
Develop, then, a state of self confidence both in that you will make
good choices and that you are indeed someone the other person will want
to know and enjoy being with. An old friend is like a comfortable pair
of shoes. What marks the distinction between a new acquaintance and an
old friend? Avoid taking any friendship for granted, even when you have
known the person more than a decade, or they are related to you. Always
have an idea of how you can treat the person, listen attentively to them
or do a little something in gratitude to make them feel special and
appreciated.
Be a listener and not a talker. Put your opinions and points of view to
one side. Get into the other person’s viewpoint. Aim to meet a wide
variety of different personalities from different social classes, walks
of life and age groups. I have been very lucky in the last fifteen years
in being a private teacher. I have taught persons aged 3 years old to 91
years and every age in between! Persons of different incomes and
interests. I get along just as well with the oldest as the youngest!
My main secret is to immediately establish rapport by identifying
closely with the other person’s interests, viewpoint and even mannerisms
and expressions. I mirror the words and phrases they speak. I ask
questions relating to their interests and life experiences. I listen
carefully and try to store information for a later date. I care about
them!
The first consideration I have is to determine roughly the person’s age
group, marital status, class, intelligence level, likely political and
religious standpoints, and the style of their dress, their accent and
manner of speech. Then I flick through my memory to recall
conversational items that worked well with similar persons. I might ask
a five year old how they are enjoying school, or a ninety year old if
they belong to any clubs, and whom their grandchildren are. I quickly
draw older persons out into stories of their youth and early work
experiences.
I establish a picture of the person’s hobby interests, their work, their
social standing. If I can place any person we may both know, or
experience we may have shared, then I remark on these topics! I am
building a rapport so the person feels they can trust me a little and
therefore feels I am no longer a stranger. After all, everyone you know
was a stranger to you once!
Go for a job which allows you to meet a great many persons from
different social backgrounds. Customer service is excellent for this. Do
all you can to please people. Listen to their problems, tentatively
suggest possible solutions. Share a short humourous situation from your
own life experience with which the person can identify easily. Aim for a
clear mutual understanding and always seek to establish a definable
platform of shared likes and dislikes. Keep all this in mind for when
you next meet.
Always be polite. Resist inflicting your opinions, your ego upon the
other person. Allow your acquaintances to develop and mature very slowly
over time. Never outstay your welcome! Inject a little gentle humour
into your conversations and keep a light tone without resorting to
telling jokes. Accept the other person on their terms! I always maintain
eye contact politely and never allow my gaze to drop although I will
often look away to a point of interest. I want the person to feel I am
utterly absorbed by them without overpowering them. It is a fine
balance.
On occasion you will say the wrong thing, offend without meaning to,
overstep the mark. Be realistic: you will not strike the right note
every time. But just as in learning the piano, so practice makes
perfect! Enjoy your efforts and enjoy meeting people. Listen
attentively. Store all you can within your memory. Develop your ability
to maintain a light flow of artless conversation, never be afraid of
pauses and be self confident: focus quietly on your strengths without
dwelling on your weaknesses. Find mutual points of interest.
When a friendship sours ask yourself why. Even if you feel you would
prefer to phase the person out of your life make the effort to make
amends. Be quiet, be polite but seek to appease: be willing to say
sorry. See the other person’s point: they are quick to take offence,
quick to suppose you are laughing at them. Assure them by your actions,
your eye contact, your sympathy, that this is not so. You respect them,
you accept you differed in opinion. You may go on to become warm
friends! In any case the person will both think and speak well of you.
And so you will build a solid reliable reputation and a firm network of
good friends. A friend in need is a friend indeed: be sure to be a good
friend also!
So how and where do you meet people? Join a variety of clubs and
societies you can attend throughout the week. You need join no dating
agencies if you are single: be confident, you will soon meet a number of
attractive persons quite naturally and enjoyably with your new found
social skills! I would personally choose these diversions: I would join
a sports club, sailing or bowls, a games club, scrabble or chess, or
bridge, a political club or debating society, a local history or
bird-watching group, or ramblers’ association, a rotary club, a church,
a team of some sort, and I would do something exciting at the weekend
such as marshalling for rally or motorcycle events or some sporting or
charitable activity, I would join a choir or a band or a literary
society, I might join a gourmet food lovers’ circle!
So I never trouble if I need to move house and relocate because within
two weeks I know I will move in as wide and varied a circle as ever
before! Always developing my ability to get amiably along with as many
different sort of people and age-groups as possible. Never a dull
moment! And someone I meet will soon introduce me to their own circle of
friends and I will enjoy more social invitations than I can ever accept!
I shall want to be on the local council, I shall enjoy having my
opinions consulted! I will revel in being seen as a problem solver!
Offer and accept only casual acquaintance, joyfully meet people’s
friends, join many circles, be bold, and in the fullness of time you
will enjoy many strong true and lasting friendships for life. And this
is a pleasure that can never be bought with money. It is the reward you
deserve for taking the time and trouble and investing your evergy into
making the lives of those around more pleasurable! Be there. Listen.
Offer no advice. Be lighthearted and carefree but with strong values.
Trust. Share. Like. All your relationships will stem from your ability
to be a friend. Your wife or husband, your children, your parents and
grandparents, your relatives, your in-laws: all will respect you and
value your friendship! Just take the time. And reap as you sow. I feel
there can be no greater happiness and no greater security!
Louise Woodcock Piano Teacher, Success Motivator and Internet Business
Strategist. You can discover more about me at http://ZowocoMarketing.com
Please feel free to use this article however you wish! God bless! 