Improve Your People Skills

If you walk through the day and can’t find a single person to engage in friendly banter with, it’s not because everyone is “unfriendly” or “awkward”—it’s because you are

my opinion, one of the greatest movies in existence is Back to the Future—specifically the first of the trilogy, though the third edition shouldn’t be discounted. We can just forget the second movie ever happened, but I digress.
It’s no secret among my friends that I love the movie, and that I have semi-serious aspirations to purchase a DeLorean someday. Disappointingly, this story is not about my fondness for all things 1980s.
A friend was hosting a dinner party that was a loosely veiled front for a matchmaking event—each friend had to bring a single friend of the opposite sex, and we were told to “dress to impress.” This had the makings of a fun night—or so I thought.
All went well until I met Dorothy. She was pleasant at first, but when I happened to mention my love of Back to the Future, things turned sour. She made a face as if she had smelled a dirty diaper and proceeded to give me her opinion on Back to the Future, her theories on time travel, and every inconsequential plot hole in the movie.
Did you know that Michael J. Fox wasn’t even the original actor cast for Marty McFly? He wasn’t that great anyway.
Why didn’t the characters just tell the truth to each other?
Why was Marty’s mom attracted to her own son? It’s so unrealistic. (As if the glaring plot hole for a movie on time travel was being attracted to Michael J. Fox.)
After her monologue on the movie, it was clear her conclusion was that the movie was terrible, that I should feel bad for liking it, and that I was even a little bit terrible. Even after I tried to walk away from the conversation-turned-lecture, she cornered me by the pizza rolls later that night and tried to re-state her points and make sure I agreed.
I remember thinking at that point how she was one of the most annoying people I had ever met, but it wasn’t until later that I was able to articulate why.
She was a full-blown, card-carrying member of the Belief Police. She was the person who would track you down just to tell you that you were wrong.
In these people’s minds, it’s unfathomable that people can have different beliefs and think differently from them. They can’t stand the fact that you disagree with their perspective or come to a different conclusion, and they attempt to patrol your brain for disagreeable beliefs and thoughts.
These are the same people who will tell you that things based on your opinion or tastes are just plain wrong. They aren’t malicious, but this behavior comes from a stunning lack of self-awareness.
Awareness, openness, and listening are all cornerstones of becoming the consummate people person—the person in the room who can handle any situation and always knows how to react. It may seem like an understated part of life, but in reality, it’s the ability to get what you want, no matter what. We never deal and struggle with circumstances—we deal and struggle with people. People are the gatekeepers, not your resume or anything else you might assume is more important than how well you interact with others.
These are teachable concepts, and though you might not be a member of the Belief Police, it’s often the smaller, more nuanced signals we send out that repel people, or make us less trustworthy and liked. You can call them interpersonal skills, people skills, or just how to get along with anyone. Whatever the label, they pave the path towards extraordinary relationships wherever you are.
I want to teach you the most important aspects of connecting with others and understanding them as a means to the action you want. Some of them seem counterintuitive, common sensical, or too nuanced to matter—but that’s the thing; they do matter, and it’s people’s tendencies to completely ignore them that leads to an interrogation over pizza rolls. After all, if everything was obvious, you wouldn’t be interested in this book, would you?
For the record, I didn’t change my opinion on Back to the Future.

and you have to proactively step through it.

Most people have the tendency to blame others for their failures and shortcomings, and doing so exempts you from responsibility and thus the ability to look at your own actions

You can’t expect the world to open the door for you. You have to open it yourself,

Whatever you turn your attention to will grow in your mind and improve

depending on external actions to occur to you, not taking action yourself.

a skill won’t grow on its own.

Human beings are motivated by self-interest, whether we want to admit it or not.

What do you care about? Yourself and things that benefit you. Now take a split second to think about their self-interests, and how they stand to benefit by an action, event, or statement. This is how you can immediately appear to understand people—by understanding what they are motivated by and generally want from any situation. You can think of this in the broadest of terms, and you can also drill down to tiny, specific interests.