10 Ways To Make People Like You More
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After he died,
everyone started to like him again. For years everyone would trash
him. Then, about a year ago, our friend and ex-coworker suddenly
died. The eulogies started spilling out onto the Internet. Everyone
“learned how to live” from him. Or learned “everything
I know about journalism” from him. One guy, “Rex”
wrote the most glowing eulogy I had ever seen for anyone. The last
time Rex and I actually spoke together about our dead mutual friend
he had accused him of trying to molest him.
People are
such liars.
But it makes
me think: I always want people to like me more. Sometimes this is
in a negative way (maybe I am using people as mirrors instead of
just simply liking myself), sometimes this is in some societial,
pseudo scientific way (people live longer when they have bigger
support systems “studies show”), and sometimes this is
in a positive way (I like being around and learning from good people).
10 Ways
to Get People to Like you More
1) Die.
If you die then certainly people will feel two things: A) they
will feel bad. B) they shouldÂ’ve learned more about the good
side of you. C) itÂ’s inappropriate to say anything bad about
dead people so the only thing said will be positive things. Now,
you might think its tongue-in-cheek that I suggest dying. I donÂ’t
really think you should die. But some of the later methods I mention
are derived from this method. There are many ways to die. Death
being only one of them.
Oh, also, this
doesnÂ’t mean faking your death and showing up at your own funeral
to see who shows up. That only happens in bad detective novels.
2) You Can
Hate Them. IÂ’ve largely stopped myself from falling into
this trap. But if Person A hates me and Person B likes me I used
to spend much more time trying to get Person A to like me than spending
time with the actual person who likes me. (You can see this phenomena
on Internet message boards every day).
This is a psychological
trap that stems from lack of self-confidence. If someone hates
you, then allow them to hate you. You have to catch yourself.
ItÂ’s normally their problem. Nine times out of ten (and this
is quantified based on my experience) they usually hate some aspect
of their own lives and they have found you to be a convenient target.
They were beaten as a kid and now James is a convenient target.
Why a convenient target? I donÂ’t know. I donÂ’t care. You
let yourself be. You follow the rules of “How
to Deal With Crappy People”. which recommends the exact
opposite of what most people end up doing.
3) You Can
Ignore Them. ThereÂ’s two reasons to do this. If you they
donÂ’t like you why are you paying attention to them anyway?
Rule #1 in the Emotional side of the Daily
Practice: Ignore the people who either donÂ’t like you or
give you a hard time.
Meanwhile,
nobody likes to be ignored. Ignorance is an invisible boundary you
put between yourself and the other person. They feel it as soon
as they cross that boundary. If they cross it and still choose to
stay away, then fine – who needs them! If they cross it and
want to still be near your infinitely cool presence, then they have
to change the way they treat you.
A lot of this
requires confidence in who YOU are, as opposed to the other person.
Maybe thereÂ’s one person you have in mind that you wished liked
you better. ThatÂ’s ok. But still, rule #1: ignore the people
who donÂ’t treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Imagine
a dying ancient wizard (SHAZAM!) who has chosen to give you all
the magical secrets so you can be the new ancient wizard that would
help the world. In our mind we think: “ok, he’s going
to give me beeÂ’s honey and batÂ’s excrement and I will
mix them together and…” But the reality is the magic secrets
are the way you transform yourself so that magic happens all around
you automatically, without any say or control from you. This is
rule #1.
Make yourself
into magic.
4) You Can
Find Something New Each Day. A human being is an archaeological
dig. In an archaeological dig you donÂ’t take a shovel and go
right in and find the ancient city of Jerusalem, or wherever. Archaeologists
have these tiny picks and they dig one millimeter at a time. Before
they find the ancient city they were looking for they have to dig
for years and years, one layer at a time. Humans are the same way.
And not only
that, thereÂ’s more then one type of layer: thereÂ’s the
physical (always a pleasure to find something new). ThereÂ’s
the emotional (the years of happiness, sadness, abuse, abusing,
the secrets dug away, the secrets she or he would be happy to share).
ThereÂ’s the mental: what do they know that you donÂ’t?
What can they teach you? And thereÂ’s the spiritual. Everyone
realizes that their tiny bodies are not in control of the universe.
So what do they believe separates them from whatever does control
the beginning, middle, and end of everything. Maybe its purely scientific.
Or maybe itÂ’s a hodgepodge of ancient traditions. Or maybe
its ideas that have worked for them that they have lived with in
private for years.
Find out one
small thing a day. One loveable thing. If you put in that effort,
they will sense it on some level. If an archaeologist puts in the
time, unravels the layers, ancient treasure is the ultimate dessert.
5) Give
Them Credit. At work everyone wants credit. At home everyone
wants credit. “I DID clean the dishes today,” my daughter
might say. People tend to hoard credit. They are afraid that if
others get credit for what they did then they might get diminished
in some way. So do the opposite. Give credit/appreciation for everything,
even work you did. HereÂ’s a ratio: for every piece of credit
you give out, it comes back tenfold. How will it come back? We donÂ’t
know.
ThatÂ’s
part of becoming an ancient wizard. The world bends to create magic
for you. Because youÂ’ve given credit to itÂ’s citizens,
the world itself will return the favor. And, on top of it, the people
you help – by either appreciating them more or giving credit
to them – will like you more.
This is not
being manipulative in any way. This is being a superhero. It’s making
people feel better. It’s showing people that you paid attention
to what they were doing. You NOTICED.
May
8, 2012
Copyright
© 2012 The
Altucher Confidential