Do you know a truly civil person? This is a person others might describe as socially skilled, courteous, collected, centered, cool, or “has her stuff together”. Being a civil person has huge benefits:
People Will Listen to You – People listen more attentively to civil persons than to rude or boisterous people. A rational, unemotional argument offered by a cool, collected person is MUCH more attractive to thinking persons than is a loud, expletive-laden, emotional rant. Think back to an example of listening to each extreme of person. You may be able to remember the arguments of the loud person but you probably did not act on them. But the “cool head” very probably moved you to action if that was his/her goal.
You’ll Make More Friends – Humans seem to be drawn to calm, collected people. They have a calming effect on persons around them. I remember a pilot named “Smash” (not sure how he got that nickname but it probably had to do with a tendency to fly faster than needed). When this unassuming guy of normal 5’9” stature entered a room, I felt the most amazing sense of calm. I never asked anyone else if they felt the same thing (tough, manly Air Force Lieutenants don’t admit to such paranormal impressions) and I have since wondered if he had the same effect on others. He was unremarkable in every other way but, due to ESP or pheromones or something, he lowered my blood pressure whenever I was around him in the Squadron every month or so when I flew in the F-15 Eagle fighters there.
You’ll Have Lowered Blood Pressure and You’ll Live Longer – Cultivate the ability to always be civil even (maybe especially) to people with whom you totally disagree. This is a powerful skill. When you have made up your mind to remain civil, no matter what another person says, you are very unlikely to become upset or lose your cool. This is because when we stay calm, our unpredictable amygdala (our “lizard brain” that tries to get us emotional and is always ready for a fight) remains under control by the prefrontal cortex (the rational, thinking part of our brain). Remaining calm will breed a strong character. Make a game of it – – – see how dramatically different your behavior can be from your opponent’s. As he/she gets louder, you get even calmer; as he gets more exasperated, you get more focused. With luck, the other person will soon stop emoting and will begin thinking. Only then will the discussion become productive. And if the opponent does not calm down, it is probably because he cannot control his emotion (anger, fear, whatever) and you are wasting your time: Just say something non-threatening like “we’ll talk more some other time” and walk away. And glance over your shoulder as you leave – – – really stressed-out people can get violent when a calmer person refuses to get upset along with them!
In our next post we will talk about the remarkable benefits of following the Desiderata. It takes 60 seconds to read and is a powerful document. I’ll also show you how adding just four simple rules at the dinner table will get you labeled diplomatic and get you invited to dinner parties a lot more often! And I’ll explain the surprising connection to beer!
I’m sure you’ve heard this many times: “The first impression is the last impression”. The good news is this is not entirely true; the bad news is its not entirely false, either. Though first impressions may not be the last impressions… they do matter and what really matters is what the other person is thinking after they just associated with you – Are they thinking “I didn’t like him” or “Hmmm…. I really liked him”? The difference in these two might seem trivial but it’s not. The difference is that one side of the coin opens possibilities for you and the other side does not… Perhaps even shuts them down in some cases… and the tricky part is that all this happens “Silently“. People usually do not make this assessment loudly in public. They usually show up in conversations where you are not present.
Here’s a little example of how this once worked for me. A friend of mine arranged for me to meet up with a friend of his, who was a powerful person, and I was going there to talk to him about enrolling him in my vision of what I was doing. The meeting went fine (though I was, admittedly, a little critical of myself at the end of it) and I did not hear back from the person I met for a while. Then, one day, my friend called me and asked me “Did you see the email from the person you met?” I said “No” and checked my mailbox. It was very much there and he had accepted my offer… so, then I asked my friend that it did not appear to me that the meeting went all that well – so how come he accepted? My friend’s response was “Well! He thought the meeting was alright but the reason he accepted to work with you is because he said he liked you!”
That got me thinking and a question came to my mind: How do you assess someone as likeable… or not?
What I have found is what’s important is how people leave me … that is, to say, if someone leaves me in a better mood that I was in, when I met them, I make the assessment that they are likable!
… and then I came up with a more powerful question, for myself: What thoughts and feelings do I leave people in; after my interactions with them?
I’ll leave you with a term, a few resources on how you can show up as more likable and a couple of questions on likability.
The Term: The term you can use to think further on this is the “Likability factor (LF)“. Incidentally, there’s a book titled “The likeability factor” by Tim Sanders. The concept is really simple: If your likability factor is high, you usually come across as a likeable person and if it’s low, then you don’t.
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Do you know a truly civil person? This is a person others might describe as socially skilled, courteous, collected, centered, cool, or “has her stuff together”. Being a civil person has huge benefits: