How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships. Leil Lowndes
blurting out his order with his nose in the menu, looked at the waiter. He smiled, gave his order for the appetizer, and kept his eyes on the waiter’s for an extra second before looking down again at the menu to choose the main dish. I can’t tell you how different Sammy seemed to me just then! He came across as a sensitive and caring man, and all it took was two extra seconds of eye contact. I saw the effect it had on the waiter, too. We received exceptionally gracious service the rest of the evening.
A week later Sammy called me and said, ‘Leil, Sticky Eyes has changed my life. I’ve been following it to a T. with women, I make my eyes real sticky, and with men slightly sticky. And now everybody’s treating me with such deference. I think it’s part of the reason I’ve made more sales this week than all last month!’
If you deal with customers or clients in your professional life, Sticky Eyes is a definite boon to your bottom line. To most people in our culture, profound eye contact signals trust, knowledge, an ‘I’m here for you’ attitude.
Let’s carry Sticky Eyes one step further. Like a potent medicine that has the power to kill or cure, the next eye-contact technique has the potential to captivate or annihilate.
Bring on the big guns
Now we haul in the heavy eyeball artillery: very sticky eyes or superglue eyes. Let’s call them Epoxy Eyes. Big Bosses use Epoxy Eyes to evaluate employees. Police investigators use Epoxy Eyes to intimidate suspected criminals. And clever Romeos use Epoxy Eyes to make women fall in love with them. (If romance is your goal, Epoxy Eyes is a proven aphrodisiac.)
The Epoxy Eyes technique takes at least three people to pull off – you, your target, and one other person. Here’s how it works: Usually, when you’re chatting with two or more people, you gaze at the person who is speaking. However, the Epoxy Eyes technique suggests you concentrate on the listener – your target – rather than the speaker. This slightly disorients Target and he or she silently asks, ‘Why is this person looking at me instead of the speaker?’ Target senses you are extremely interested in his or her reactions. This can be beneficial in certain business situations when it is appropriate that you judge the listener.
Human resources professionals often use Epoxy Eyes, not as a technique, but because they are sincerely interested in a prospective employee’s reaction to certain ideas being presented. Lawyers, bosses, police investigators, psychologists, and others who must examine subjects’ reactions also use Epoxy Eyes for analytical purposes.
When you use Epoxy Eyes, it sends out signals of interest blended with complete confidence in yourself. But because Epoxy Eyes puts you in a position of evaluating or judging someone else, you must be careful. Don’t overdo it or you could come across as arrogant and brazen.
Technique 3:
Epoxy eyes
This brazen technique packs a powerful punch. Watch your target person even when someone else is talking. No matter who is speaking, keep looking at the man or woman you want to impact.
Sometimes using full Epoxy Eyes is too potent, so here is a gentler, yet effective, form: Watch the speaker but let your glance bounce to your target each time the speaker finishes a point. This way Mr or Ms Target still feels you are intrigued by his or her reactions, yet there is relief from the intensity.
When love is on your mind
If romance is on the horizon, Epoxy Eyes transmits yet another message. It says, ‘I can’t take my eyes off you’ or ‘I only have eyes for you.’ Anthropologists have dubbed eyes ‘the initial organ of romance’ because studies show intense eye contact plays havoc with our heartbeat.8 It also releases a druglike substance into our nervous system called phenylethylamine. Since this is the hormone detected in the human body during erotic excitement, intense eye contact can be a turn-on.
Men, Epoxy Eyes is extremely effective on women – if they find you attractive. The lady interprets her nervous reaction to your untoward gaze as budding infatuation. If she does not like you, however, your Epoxy Eyes are downright obnoxious. (Never use Epoxy Eyes on strangers in public settings or you could get arrested!)
Do you remember the lyrics to the old Shirley Bassey song?
The minute you walked in the joint, I could see you were a man of distinction – a real big spender.
Good looking, so refined. Say wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on in my mind?
The goal of this first section is not to make you look like a real big spender. Rather it is to give you the cachet of a real big Somebody the moment people lay eyes on you. To that end, we now explore the most important technique to make you look like a Very Important Person.
‘The minute you walked in the joint, I knew you were a real big winner’
When the doctor smacks your knee with that nasty little hammer, your foot jerks forward. Thus the phrase knee-jerk reaction. Your body has another instinctive reaction. When a big jolt of happiness hits your heart and you feel like a Winner, your head jerks up automatically and you throw your shoulders back. A smile frames your lips and softens your eyes.
This is the look Winners have constantly. They stand with assurance. They move with confidence. They smile softly with pride. No doubt about it! Good posture symbolizes you are a man or woman who is used to being on top.
Obviously millions of mothers sticking their knuckles between their kids’ shoulder blades, and trillions of teachers telling students, ‘Stand up straight!’ hasn’t done the trick. We are a nation of slouchers. We need a technique more stern than teachers, more persuasive than parents, to make us stand like a Somebody.
In one profession, perfect posture, perfect equilibrium, perfect balance is not only desirable – it’s a matter of life and death. One false move, one slump of the shoulders, one hangdog look, can mean curtains for the high-wire acrobat.
I’ll never forget the first time Mama took me to the circus. When seven men and women raced into the centre ring, the crowd rose as though they were all joined at the hips. They cheered with one thunderous voice. Mama pressed her lips against my ear and reverently whispered these were the Great Wallendas, the only troupe in the world to perform the seven-person pyramid without a net.
In an instant, the crowd became hushed. Not a cough or a Coke slurp was heard in the big top as Karl and Herman Wallenda shouted cues in German to their trusting relatives. The family meticulously and majestically ascended into the position of a human pyramid. They then balanced precariously on a thin wire hundreds of feet above the hard dirt with no net between them and sudden death. The vision was unforgettable.
To me, equally unforgettable was the beauty and grace of the seven Wallendas racing into the centre of the big top to take their bows. Each perfectly aligned – head high, shoulders back – standing so tall it still didn’t seem like their feet were touching the ground. Every muscle in their bodies defined pride, success, and their joy of being alive. (Still!) Here is a visualization technique to get your body looking like a Winner who is in the habit of feeling that pride, success, and joy of being alive.
Your posture is your biggest success barometer
Imagine you are a world-renowned acrobat, master of the iron-jaw act waiting in the