It turns out Garth Brooks was right. When you have friends in low places, you’ll have plenty of company to help you drown your blues away. But did you ever consider that your friends are contributing to your problems? Research shows that who you are is a function of who you know. Your friends help shape your outlook, values, emotions and behaviors. Their influence acts like an invisible hand that can either pull you down and thwart your efforts to reach your goals or give you a physical and psychological boost to help you create the life you want. Psychologists call this invisible hand “emotional contagion” or “social contagion,” and it can work for or against you. Learn how to avoid its death grip and start letting social contagion help you create a richer life.
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There is a significant correlation between your social skills and your success in any area of life. With good social skills, it’s easier to make friends, build strong relationships and get ahead in your career.

If you lack social skills, it’s important to learn how to build social skills. In this article, I’m going to reveal to you the 5 most effective ways I know for building social skills, based on my experience as a social confidence coach.

1. Practice

Developing any ability is largely a matter of practice. In order to develop your social skills, you need to spend a lot of time interacting with others.
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Making people like you is the first step to making long lasting relationships, and long lasting relationships are what bring you happiness and success. For this one reason I personally work on this certain idea religiously, and can quite confidently say that I have finally figured out how to make “any” person almost instantly  like me.

I have condensed all that I have learnt into 5 main points. Hope these strategies help you become a people magnet as well.

1. 1. Be Genuinely Interested in People

You can’t make people truly like you, unless you are interested in them as well. Many people claim to have made systems that you can make people like you, on the base that you can disregard the other person and reap all the rewards. Wrong.

Friendships are all about give and take. You give some and you take some. And only through an even exchange of these interactions can you build a strong foundation for a lasting relationship.

1. 2. Be Positive and Happy

People are attracted to happiness and positivity, just like bees are attracted to flowers. We humans just can’t get enough of it. So keeping that in mind think about this: People who have lots of friends or attract people easily are they sad or negative? Are they gloomy people? Are they depressed?

No.

People who have attractive personalities are always happy people, who radiate positivity. Try to mold yourself to be that happy person people crave and people will be running after you.

1. 3. Radiate Confidence

I don’t want to dwell very deep into this because I feel this has become quite cliché but it’s true. Confidence is very attractive and people like confident people.

If you are able to build self-confidence in yourself, you will automatically hold yourself differently, you will speak differently, and you will behave differently. It’s all part of a process.

1. 4. Give People your Undivided Attention

Nowadays, nobody has spare time to give someone an exclusive conversation. You have to be different. Whenever you meet and talk with people give them your complete attention. Make eye contact, actually think about what the other person saying and give genuine answers.

The other person will pick up on this specialized effort, and in return will begin to like you.

1. 5. Relax and Enjoy

The most likeable people are those who are genuine. Don’t try to be somebody who you are not. Relax and slow down, analyze what you are doing and then do it.

Life is not always a competition, have fun, meet people, and enjoy.

Osman Hameed writes about self-improvement and shares effective tips for living better life on his website www.codeofliving.com. CodeofLiving is a juicy mix of tips, tutorials and articles that are guaranteed to make your life better.

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Post written by Lori Gosselin.

I remember reading M Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled when I was a young mother and wife. I loved the book so much I formed a book club around it. At our first meeting we read the first line of the book, “Life is difficult” and got caught up in discussion about it. I was surprised to learn that these classy, “together” women also found life difficult.

The verdict was unclear. Although we shared some issues, we also had different issues we were dealing with, ones that seemed less ‘difficult’ to those who had their own crosses, of various sizes, to bear.
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When it comes to communication, whether you are speaking to a large audience, selling to an individual, teaching a class or having a conversation with your spouse, I believe that most of us aim at the wrong target.

When you read any book on communication, or if you ask anyone what their goal is for their presentation – they will talk about making it perfect.

They want you to have the right opening, structure the presentation correctly, back up every point, make it engaging, and close in a memorable way. I agree with all of those concepts (in fact I teach them) but I believe we miss the mark if we focus on perfection.

Instead the focus of our communication should be connection. Think about this for a moment. The golden rule of business is that people do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust. A perfect presentation doesn’t help people know you, like you, or trust you unless you connect.

I have been in thousands of sales situations either one on one or with small groups. I have taught workshops to tens of thousands of people, and I have spoken on stages to audiences as big as 15,000. I don’t think I have ever given a perfect presentation, but my goal is never perfection – it is connection.

So how do you connect? Here are Four Connection Tools:

1.Be Authentic
When we are real with people, they are typically real with us. I am amazed by how many people try and put on a front or play a part when they are speaking or presenting, and we all have internal “phony-detectors” that cause us to turn off from these people. Don’t try to be someone you are not, or what you think you they want. Be confident in who you are, it’s the only way to connect.

2.Be Curious
Connection only comes when you engage the people you are talking to and make them part of the conversation. When you are naturally curious to learn about others and get to know them, it is an endearing quality. Learn to ask great questions that open people up and allow them to be a participant in the conversation, rather than a spectator to your presentation.

3.Really Listen
The skill of listening is something that very few people possess. I know that I am as guilty as the next guy. (just ask my wife) But learning to really listen to others so that they feel understood and validated will create the kind of connection that we are seeking.

4.Tell Stories
People love stories. But more importantly stories evoke emotion in people that creates connection to the message of the story as well as the messenger. (that is you) If you are communicating only dry, boring facts, without any emotional connecter (a story) you will not create connection. Stories are a great tool to bring humor, reality and human connection into any communication.

In all of your communication, don’t miss the mark. The goal is connection, not perfection.
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Ty Bennett is the author of The Power of Influence. Described by Peter Vidmar as “How To Win Friends & Influence People for our day.” To learn more or get a copy of The Power of Influence — click here.

Motivation Articles, Essays, Tips and Advice

Think about offering meeting and incentive travel to your employees, executives, and staff. Incentive travel and meetings serve up a fun atmosphere where you can conduct business meetings and your employees can really enjoy themselves when they are not conducting business. A venue finder and event planner can help you design good incentive travel programmes.

Free planning tool starts by asking users to choose a combination of rail, air and road transportation. Travellers also learn about travel insurance, airport security and packing tips from the Corporate Travel page.
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