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If you want to command, respect, admiration, and higher pay, then stop chasing people and learn to attract them.
Culturally speaking the person with the higher status is the person that does not beg to get someone’s attention, but it’s the person who elegantly attracts others to him/her.
This person is often labeled Magnetic. That could be you.
I learned over the years a few things that will make you more attractive and more magnetic. Below are 9 of them.
How to get someone’s attention without being sleazy
1 – Be interested in your topic. The best thing you can do for yourself is to find a way and rekindle your passion for your subject. Passion is contagious, and if you show passion for what you are talking about, then people will be drawn into your topic at an unconscious level.
I keep digging, researching, reading, exploring, and trying things out in the field of public speaking so that I will never be bored. Figure out what you need to do today to re-kindle your passion in your topic.
If you can’t cultivate the passion for what you are doing, then you might as well seek some other line of work. Because others who have a passion for the topic will beat you in performance and communication.
2 – Be interested in your audience. You can’t expect your audience to be interested in you if you are not interested in them. Get curious about your audience. Study them, survey them and learn about their lives. People can detect genuine interest.
The other day a client of mine told me that he was trying to influence another VP in his company, but he knew nothing about that VP. He was not aware where the VP lived, what that VP was working on, or his vision of things.
Without being interested in your audience, and learning about them, you will not be able to communicate effectively to them. Most of your communication with your audience is going to be presumptive, and that could get you into a lot of trouble.
If you know what they care about and you mention it in your presentations, you will be the coolest and most attractive person in their life.
3 – Become a good storyteller. I studied influence and persuasion for the past ten years – Neuro-linguistic-programming, influence psychology, hypnosis, etc – and storytelling is the most powerful tool I found to grab attention and change minds.
I was an engineer in my earlier career and thought (as most technical people) that I am not a storytelling kind of person. I was wrong. With some classes and practice, I got better. Now I can’t imagine I would be where I am today without being able to tell stories.
Stories captivate people and affect them at a very deep level. Research indicates that a good story can influence your neurochemistry and ultimately affect your behavior. That’s why storytelling has been one of the best influence and persuasion tools of leaders around the world.
4 – Have a unique point of view. The population of earth is expanding exponentially, and you need to stand out to be noticed. The best way to stand out is by developing your perspective. Don’t just listen to the news and get your opinion from there. Read, think, discuss, debate, formulate your opinions and back them up. This applies to life and work.
What do you think about Global warming or the future of Social Media? Do you have an opinion?
Notice that authority figures always have opinions. That’s why they get invited to speak, that’s why the are interviewed in the media, that’s why they are paid the big bucks.
What is your opinion about this? Share it in the comments: I would love to know.
5 – Become “Brain Candy.” Read outside your field, travel, take martial arts, take art classes and blend what you learn into your profession. The new perspective you bring to your field from all those activities makes you brain candy to those around you.
6 – Develop your voice. Writers write to develop their writing voice and speakers speak to develop their speaking voice. You have to talk and communicate out loud on a regular basis. Developing your voice takes time, and you have to commit to it because it will never develop on its own. Your unique speaking voice is yours, and nobody will have anything like it – that’s why it’s so valuable.
Having your unique voice will make you attractive because you will stand out as a fresh breath of air in your field. While everyone else sounds the same, repeats and regurgitates from the same material and opinions, YOU will be different.
7 – Simplify the complicated. Have you ever heard yourself say “this is too complicated to explain?” What happened next? Did you give up? Most people give up and move on.
Next time you get to a complicated topic, go lock yourself up in a room and figure out a way to explain it. That’s how you grow, and that’s how you stand out as a communicator.
Once people hear your explanation, they will be thrilled because somebody else did the work for them. The marketing genius Jay Abraham once said: “if you can explain people’s problems better than they do, they will automatically assume that you have a solution.” If you can solve complex problems well at work and for your clients, then they will be sold before you even present the solution.
8 – Be more expressive. Use your hands, face, eyes, voice, body, and space around to express your ideas. People usually hold back because they don’t know the limits. The best way to learn about your limits is to take a public speaking class with video feedback and get professional feedback on your concerns (don’t video tape yourself alone, because you typically will be very judgmental of yourself at first).
9 – Develop your positive emotional muscle. Emotions are infectious, and people want to be around positively charged people because they want to be infected. When was the last time you felt like a winner, felt satisfied, accomplished, happy, content, powerful, loved, etc.?. These are the emotions I try to cultivate and build every day.
Society, the economy, and our educational system keep us focused on stress, anxiety, scarcity, fear and we forget about these positive emotions. Just like a muscle, if you don’t use it you lose it, and positive emotions start to fade away.
It does not have to be this way. Every day focus on recreating these emotions at will. The more you do it, the better and stronger the muscle gets.
So stop pushing, shoving, or chasing your audience and start attracting them to you and your ideas. You will find it very rewarding for you, your career and your finances.
Becoming more magnetic is the best way to get people’s attention and influence them.
