In the past, I've spoken a lot about phrases that you're gonna want to add to your vocabulary in order to become more charismatic and persuasive.
But the truth is far more common are phrases that you currently have
in your vocabulary that are killing your charisma, that are making you far less persuasive, and that are getting people to fight with you.
So in this video, what I want to do is talk about five of those most common phrases
and give you things that you can substitute so that you're just getting rid of the bad stuff so that your natural charisma can shine through.
The first one of these is not the worst but it is the most common
and it's really a missed opportunity so just imagine that you got a friend who is flying in from out of town
and he comes in he asks you if you can pick him up at the airport
and like a good friend you say yes, you drive down to the airport, he gets in your car and he says thank you
to which you replied like many of us do, "No problem."
This is a huge, huge missed opportunity because what you're saying when you say, "No problem," to someone that you've just done a favor for
is that the reason that you did it isn't because you value his friendship or you wanted to see him but because it wasn't a huge cost to you.
And it kind of implies that if it had been a huge cost, you might not be there to pick him up in the first place.
Much stronger than this is, "I'm happy to help," and in this case you might want to say, "Hey, man. You're a great friend. I'm happy to help you."
If you do this, you are building this around the relationship that you have
and not just insisting, "Well, I'm only here because I was in the area."
Now, are there situations in your life where you hold the door for a stranger they say, "Thank you," and you might say, "No problem,"?
Sure, not a big deal.
This is more for those times when you genuinely do a favor,
you don't want to cut it down — you want to use it as a chance to really reinforce the relationship that you have.
This second one which actually inspired this video -- I heard this and I cringed and I went, "I have to make a video on phrases that are ruining your charisma."
I was at a restaurant just picking up food and there was a guy in there that was
speaking to a waiter and I heard it on my way out; he said, "You screwed up my bill."
And I walked down and I just grated. One, because it bothers me when people
speak to a waiter in a different way that they might speak to someone who's just not a waiter -- that they don't have that power over;
but that phrase in and of itself is immediately casting blame.
When you say you messed up or you screwed up, you were going to get that
person to dig in their heels and fight you because what you're implying is that they are somehow wrong.
Now, this waiter has no power in this dynamic because it's so asymmetrical — he did go along with it —
but if you do this in your life, you're just inviting resistance.
Much more powerful is to say something like this, "Hey. I think there may be a mistake on my bill. Can you help me figure it out?"
Now, this is powerful for two reasons. The first reason is that you're using the passive voice — you're not trying to say that he did it
and in fact, he might not have made the mistake — it could have been the cashier —
and there's also been times I know in my life and probably in yours
where you've been certain that somebody screwed something up,
you checked it three times, you showed it to them and then they pointed out how you were wrong in the first place and you just look like an idiot.
So by saying, "I think there may be a mistake," you're not focusing on who's to blame; you're just focusing on, "I want to fix this."
And then that second part -- "Could you please help me figure this out? Could you please help me get to the bottom of this?" --
that puts you on the same team and actually sets up a goal.
If you mess this up, there's no way to respond to that other than going, "Okay..."
and just feeling bad about yourself. When you say, "Can you help me get to the bottom of this?"
now you're both trying to correct a mistake, you're moving in the right direction, and you're not going to face as much resistance.
So substitute that one in.
The third one which I do all the time — the preemptive disqualification.
This is the person who starts a speech off by going, "I haven't had a ton of time to repair this so here we go,"
or the person who tells the story and says, "I know this isn't something you're really interested in but..."
and then they tell the story or in my case, right before I'm about to sing a song because it's something that I've been practicing,
I say, "I'm not that talented but here goes."
A lot of times, when there's something that's ambiguous — a story that's okay,
or a song that is sung okay — what people are going to use to decide if it's good
or bad is the frame that is put around it and when you frame it as, "This is not interesting. I haven't spent a lot of time on this. I'm not talented,"
you were telling people to interpret everything that comes after this as not very good.
If you just keep your mouth shut, tell the story, give the speech or sing the song,
you're at least not putting any frame; and in fact, you can actually do yourself a big favor by putting a positive honest frame on there in advance.
Now, you might not think that you're the most talented but you can still say,
"Hey, this is a topic that is really timely or a topic that might interest you," or "this is a song that I think you'll recognize."
By saying that you immediately capture people's attention, they're paying more attention and they think it relates to them
and they're more likely to view what you do in a positive light.
The fourth one — this is one that happens when you are arguing and oftentimes, before you blow it and you create a big fight.
And that's when you say, "You always" or "you never..." and then something negative.
Now, there's no problem when you say, "Hey, you always are there for me" or "you have never let me down."
People aren't gonna argue and say, "Actually, you know there was that one time where I did let you down."
It's when you follow it up with something negative.
It's almost always the case in the world that it's not always and it's not never.
There's some shade of "sometimes" going on.
And when you say, "You always do this," not only is that person on the back foot
but now they are correct and you are incorrect because you've just stated something that isn't factually true most of the time.
Much better — when you feel like someone has done something to upset you and you feel like they always do it or
you feel like they never do it is to say, "When you" blank, "I feel" blank.
So you might say, "When you say that my writing isn't very good, I feel like I shouldn't continue to pursue my dream of being an author."
"When you say that I'm not good at singing, it makes me feel like you don't really value our friendship."
Whatever it is that is occurring and then how you feel; this is something that can't be disputed because they just did that thing
and you're saying, "When this happens..." and then your feeling, again, is not something that's up for dispute — you can feel however you want.
So you're at least starting this discussion from place of honesty and truth
and then you can work on behavior change rather than getting into an argument.
We have another video on how to actually win arguments which have a link to one of these corners
and in the description if you want to go ahead and check that out.
The last one — this is one, again, I've done in the past and I'm on the receiving end
of this a lot more often these days; it occurs typically in emails.
And it's when you sign off with something like, "I'd love to pick your brain about this," or "I'd love to ask you a bunch of questions,"
or even, "Thank you in advance."
When you sign off, I just want you to look at your emails where you're asking for something for people
and ask yourself if the final thing that you say and ask and trying to get something from them a "give" —
you're completely saying, "I'd like to offer you something" or some kind of a trade?
A lot of times, you'll find that it's a complete "ask."
And I get it; I've done this. You're halfway there, you're reaching out to a mentor or
someone that you'd like to connect with and you really just would like to learn from them.
So you're saying, "I'd love to learn from you."
Unfortunately, if you're reaching out to mentors, there's oftentimes a lot of other people doing that
so their time becomes limited and they can't say yes to everybody.
In my case, I have found though that I do say yes to some people.
In fact, there were two people that I spoke to who are our fans yesterday.
Shoutout to Winnie.
We had formed a relationship via email, he asked me if we could speak for 30 minutes and we did.
And Homan — I hope I'm saying it right, from Switzerland — he came in and he sent
me an email saying that he really loved the channel and at the bottom of it, he said,
"I'm a data analyst and I would love to see if I could help you by analyzing
some of your YouTube data to give you insights on how you might do better in making your videos perform well."
That immediately caught my attention and we spoke I think the day after I saw the email.
So for you, before you send that email off — check the last line,
see if it's an ask, a trade, or a give, and find out if there's some way that you can shift it towards a give.
It might not be immediately obvious at first but you do have things to give
and if you don't develop that skill, I will say here one quick tip on this —
I can do more on how to email people — is to be specific.
I've had plenty of super well-intentioned people, and I've been here myself,
reach out and say, "I'm hard working. I'll do anything," and that becomes work
to the person who's receiving it because now, they have to figure out, "How can I fit this person in?" and then it's just too much and it doesn't wind up happening.
The more specific you can be about how you can help someone and the more you can really collapse it into five, ten or fifteen minutes,
"I think I can give you these insights..." the more likely you are to get that first meeting, to get them to comply
and do what you ask them to do, and then to build a relationship off of that.
So, I hope this has helped you take five things that you may be doing in your life and to substitute them with things
that will make you more persuasive and charismatic.
If you're curious about that first video that has six things that you're probably not doing that you might want to add,
I will link to that right up here.
If you're new and you want to subscribe to the channel, we have videos every
Monday and Thursday to help you be your most confident and charismatic self so hit
that and I've said this before — if you haven't already, hit that notification bell
because you're not going to see our videos if it doesn't happen — YouTube just isn't serving them up as much.
I hope you enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one.