The second part of this book is about genuine communication. I have broken it up into the three communication tools that I use more than any others with my clients and with my friends. When I say that, I mean that I use these tools in everyday life. I use them in meetings, sales calls and parties. They are literally tools that you can use in every context of your life to help you get your own way. They can be used in parenting, relationships and even for — nightclub excellence! Have fun with them. They are so easy to use and think about.

These chapters cover persuasion, conversation and reading different kinds of people.

Here we go! Here are the first three claims on the first three tools presented in this book. They are simply the greatest tool ever for creating presence, the greatest tool ever for communication and finally, the greatest tool ever for persuasion!

Did I oversell that? I don’t think so. These tools work. Here they are.

Tool number 4: act as if — greatest tool ever for creating presence

• The keys to improving your body language and increasing your presence.

• Assessing how you are perceived by others and how you show up every day.

• Five adjustments that dramatically improve your ability to influence others.

Tool number 5: FORD — greatest communication tool ever

• Mastering the art of small talk and conversation.

• Mastering the art of sales and leadership.

• Mastering the art of customer management.

Tool number 6: positive, positive, positive — negative — the greatest persuasion tool ever

• Understanding how the pleasure–pain principle works.

• Getting others to take action.

• Creating leverage to get clients to make decisions.

All of these tools are simple concepts and tools that you can use immediately. They all are fantastic. Enjoy the ride!

Albert Mehrabian, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCLA, is well known for his study on body language and is often quoted in NLP courses. It said that only 7 per cent of your communication is conveyed by words. This is obviously a very small number. But 38 per cent of your communication is conveyed through the tone in which you say something. That makes tone five times more powerful than the words you use.

There must be some truth in this as experience often shows us that tone is more powerful than words. You know this is true if you’ve been in a relationship. A man looks at his wife and asks with a confused look on his face, ‘Sweetheart, what is the matter? Is something the matter? Have I done something? What is wrong?’

‘Nothing! Stop asking me. Nothing is the matter!’ she screams.

I hope he doesn’t respond by saying, ‘Well, that’s good. I didn’t think there was.’

Of course something is wrong.

Actually, most of us are pretty good at picking up tone and we realise that tone is often more important than words. Most of us are good at picking up things like sarcasm, sincerity and insincerity.

Mehrabian also said that 55 per cent of our communication is conveyed by body language. And while these percentages are some of the most quoted by motivational speakers around the world, a lot of people have also tried to refute the exact numbers. Either way, moving the numbers to the side, there is no doubt that the most important and powerful form of communication is our body language. The actual percentages really are hard to know, but in simple terms, your body language in most situations is your most powerful way to unconsciously influence other people.

Tool number 4, act as if, will challenge you to think about how you show up every day with your most powerful form of communication — your body language. What would other people say about you in terms of how you carry yourself? What would they say about how confident they perceive you to be? How would they describe you when you enter a room? Are you happy about what the answer to that question would be?

The great news is that you can very quickly change how you influence people at an unconscious level. It all starts with three words. These are the greatest three words! These are the three words that fundamentally changed the course of my life as I look back. Those three words are act as if.

Let me explain. If you want to be the person that you would really like to be, let me ask you a question — how would that person act? Act as if you are that person and act as if you would do the things that they would do. I want you to watch how change starts to take place.

If you were going to be a great leader, how would you walk? How would you hold yourself, how would you carry yourself? What books would you read? What would you think about? What sort of television shows would you watch? What things would you not watch? What things would you not cloud your mind with if you were going to be an outstanding leader? How do the best leaders dress, how do they hold themselves, how do they carry themselves? How do they move?

By the same token, if you were going to be a great salesperson, how would you walk? How would you hold yourself, how would you carry yourself? What books would you read? What would you think about? What sort of television shows would you watch? What things would you not watch, what things would you not cloud your mind with if you were going to be an outstanding salesperson? How do the best salespeople dress, how do they hold themselves, how do they carry themselves? How do they move?

It is no different with parenting. If you were going to be a great parent, what sort of things would you read, what sort of things would you watch? How do great parents dress? What sort of activities do great parents do? Act as if you are that person and change will instantly start to take place. You can have absolutely clarity about who you really want to be and how they would act accordingly.

The question, however, is how do you get started?

Getting started with act as if

I want to share with you a series of simple shifts to get you on the right path. I am going to ask you to hold up a mirror and examine your personal brand and how well you are doing at attracting others. I want you to grade yourself in each of the areas that I am about to share with you. These areas can be improved instantly, so I want you to score yourself on a scale between one and 10 in each of these five key areas:

1 posture

2 eye contact

3 smile

4 gratitude

5 energy.

Let’s look at them in detail.

1 Posture

How do you move and how do you hold yourself? There is a way that successful people move. There is a way the best leaders sit in meetings and conferences. I see so many young people and the terrible posture that they assume. Consider the advice given to young people, ‘Dress for where you’re going, not where you are.’ I say: ‘Posture for where you’re going, not for where you are.’ Act as if!

Posture yourself in a way that demonstrates that you intend to be successful! I see so many people sitting at the weekly meeting slumped over like they can barely hold themselves upright.

How do you sit in your company meetings? How do you sit in your sales meetings? How do you sit at training sessions? How do you walk into the office first thing in the morning? What posture do you assume when you are about to walk into your house at the end of a hard day? What posture do you take on when you are about to go to the gym and have a workout? What posture do you assume when your kids say they want to show you something?

The mind–body loop is alive and well. If you watch someone with excellent posture, they are alert and awake with their body language. Make no mistake, the mind follows suit. When the body is alert and awake, the mind is alert and awake as well.

Healthy people have better posture than sick people. Happy people have better posture than sad people. Successful people have better posture than people who feel like a complete failure.

Other people respond to posture. Therefore, change your posture and instantly change the way others view you.

Go ahead: score yourself. How good are you at owning a posture for excellence? How do you show up every day with your posture? Give yourself a score between one and 10.

2 Eye contact

Do you believe that eyes are the windows to the soul?

Eyes are amazing. I can be standing on stage and catch someone’s eye and I can feel the intensity with which they are listening. I can feel that they are connected to what is being said. Eyes create an instant connection.

Sometimes that connection can be good and sometimes that connection can be bad. You may have had the experience of making a connection with someone that you did not want to connect with. Have you ever been walking down a busy street and caught someone’s eyes from 20 metres away? You can tell right away that this person has crazy eyes. You’re walking along one way and you switch direction instantly! Or, maybe you were driving your car and caught someone’s eyes through your windscreen and their windscreen. The contact may only last a second, but there was a connection. It was a quick relationship, but it could be a good one!

One observation that I have made over the years is that the truly great leaders are very good at looking at people. They make eye contact and they present an image of a person who is confident and in control of themselves. Most employees want to be inspired by the people they work for. So much of that inspiration comes from feeling a connection with their leader. There is no quicker way to gain a connection than by making eye contact with that employee.

However, I have also observed that many bosses often forget to look at the people they are managing or leading and therefore have a low level of connection with the message they are sending. It is the same with salespeople. It is staggering how many salespeople never really look at their clients. The minute that they walked out of the appointment, they would not know the colour of the clients’ eyes because they never really looked.

I have spent a great deal of time out on the road with salespeople. I have gone along with salespeople on hundreds of appointments. The first question I ask them when we come out of the appointment is: ‘What colour tie was he wearing? What kind of jewellery was she wearing?’ Nine times out of 10 the salesperson cannot tell me because they never really looked. They were so busy flipping pages through their presentation that they were never really present with the client. They were simply turning pages and the client failed to connect with the message that the salesperson was trying to send.

Many parents do the same thing. The child walks into the room and they say, ‘Mum, Dad — look at the picture I drew.’ The parent, who is in the middle of any number of a thousand tasks that take up the day of a parent with a young child, never really makes eye contact with the child. Instead, they glance in their direction and respond with a fleeting:

They didn’t really look at the child. They didn’t really look at the picture. When it really comes down to it, they have missed an opportunity to connect with their child. They had an opportunity to get down on one knee, to the level of the child, look them in the eyes and say, ‘That is beautiful, that is fantastic.’ They missed the opportunity.

It is the same in a relationship. People forget to make eye contact with the people they love. Their partner walks in and says, ‘Hey, honey! How was your day?’ How often does it happen that the other person quickly smiles while checking their emails on their phone: ‘Good — good. Let me just quickly check my emails and I’ll be with you in a minute.’

It happens all the time. When you fail to look, you don’t actually connect.

I always tell audiences that next to the words eye contact, I want them to write down the words be present. When people are present, they naturally look at people.

Now remember, I am not talking about incessantly staring at someone to the extent that you are beginning to freak them out. It is not about big saucer eyes that start to look like crazy eyes! Instead, it is about appropriate eye contact and connection that demonstrate you are present in the conversation you are having.

Maybe when you grew up you had a father or mother who sat at the dinner table and, even though they were physically there, they weren’t really there. You could ask them a question or even walk up to them and put your arms around them. You could punch them on the shoulder or pour them a drink. Even though they were right in front of you, in reality they were still at work!

Perhaps that still happens to you. Are you present at the dinner table? Are you present in the sales meeting? Are you present in the boardroom meeting? There is great power in being able to influence other people when they know someone is listening to them. Everyone has had the experience of talking to someone whose eyes are glazing over in the middle of the conversation. You cannot influence people with glazed eyes.

How present are you? How good are you at looking at people and making eye contact that lets them know that you are listening to them and not distracted? Give yourself a score between one and 10 on eye contact. How good are you at looking and being present?

3 Smile

This is a very simple one. How often do you smile? Some people are smilers. Some people smile all the time. They walk in the office and they’re smiling. They sit in a meeting and they’re smiling. They go for a performance review and they’re smiling. They are good at it!

Some people are the opposite. I often make reference to these people in the conferences I speak at. As I say, ‘Most of you are smilers’, I say, pointing people out. ‘You, sir, are a smiler! You, ma’am, are a smiler! You are definitely a smiler. There are a few of you looking at me right now and saying, “I don’t know, Chris. I tried that once and it really didn’t work for me!”’

For most people, the place to be is probably somewhere in between smiling all the time and never smiling. The bottom line is that people want to spend more time with others that make them feel good. There is no quicker way to make someone else feel good about themselves than to smile at them. It is also the quickest way to make you feel better. For the purpose of influence, I think it worth repeating: the quickest way to make someone feel good about themselves is to smile at them.

How often do you smile? How often do you really smile at someone and make them feel special? Smiling is the quickest way to make someone feel special. How good at it are you? How often do you freely smile? How often do you experience joy? Are you living a life of joy or are you living a life of obligation? What would get you to smile more often? How often do you laugh?

Give yourself a score between one and 10 on how often you influence other people through smiling.

4 Gratitude

Gratitude really drives the bus on the first three shifts to make — posture, eye contact, smile. In other words, without gratitude, the other three may feel forced. I like the participants at the conferences that I speak at to have fun and exaggerate the first three shifts. They walk around with exaggerated posture, crazy eyes and toothy smiles. They have fun, but this is obviously not it. This won’t influence anybody. The reason for that is that they are coming from the outside in instead of from the inside out. When you drive gratitude from the inside first, the shifts on the outside happen very naturally.

Do you spend the majority of your time focused on what you do have, or do you spend most of the time focused on the things that you don’t have? Do you spend enough time appreciating the things you love, or do you spend too much time thinking about the things that are missing? Ultimately, do you spend the majority of your time thinking about the things that are right or do you spend most of your time thinking about the things that are wrong?

Tomorrow morning, when you to wake up, I want you to notice something about yourself. When you first wake up in the morning, I want you to notice what the first seven things you think about are. The most important words of all are the words you say to yourself, about yourself, when you are alone by yourself. What are the first seven things that you say to yourself?

For some people the first seven things they think about are things like, ‘Stupid alarm clock!’ ‘My head!’ ‘Why did I drink so much last night?’ ‘I have to stop drinking during the week.’ It’s not my head, it’s my back!’ Then they turn around and look at their partner lying in bed, still asleep, groan and grumble under their breath and wonder what they ever saw in them in the first place as they stumble into the bathroom. More thoughts then go through their head: ‘I wish we lived in a different house.’ ‘I wish we had enough money to renovate this bathroom.’ ‘I don’t want to take the train!’ ‘I don’t want to take the bus!’ ‘I wish we had a better car.’ ‘I don’t want to go and fight the traffic!’ ‘My job sucks!’

Are the first seven things you say in the morning negative, or are they positive?

One of my favourite words is trajectory. I am a huge believer that gratitude drives the trajectory of your day. In other words, when we start the day from a place of gratitude it is much easier to gain momentum to create success. What has been the trajectory of your life over the last 12 months? Is the trajectory up or down? Are you more, or less, connected to your job than you were 12 months ago? Is the trajectory going up or is the trajectory going down? Is your body better or worse than it was 12 months ago? Is the trajectory of health and fitness getting better or is it worse than it was 12 months ago. Is your relationship stronger or weaker than it was 12 months ago? What is the trajectory of your life in these areas? Is it going up or down?

Notice what happens when you start the day from a place of no gratitude. If you have said negative things to yourself, your day starts a negative trajectory. You have negative thoughts. That leads you to begin to attract negative people and events. Then it becomes easy to begin attracting negative responses from people.

When you are grateful, the quality of your day goes up. The trajectory goes up. Your posture improves and it becomes easier to look at people and smile.

How good are you at starting every day from a place that drives a positive trajectory? Give yourself a score between one and 10 on your daily level of gratitude.

5 Energy

Energy is the fifth part of act as if — posture, eye contact, smile, gratitude, energy — and I believe it is the most important. I say that only because it is virtually impossible to do the other four well without energy in abundance.

The reality is that of all the truly successful people I have had the privilege of meeting and working with, I have never met a truly successful person who did not possess this quality of energy in abundance. They have energy and it is contagious. They have made the decision to possess and enjoy boundless energy.

Some of you may have noticed that last sentence: they made a decision to have energy. Most people believe their energy level controls them, instead of the other way around. You are totally and completely in control of the level of energy you have on any given day.

Energy is a decision

I want you to remember that statement. It is one of the absolute keys to influencing others. You can’t do it without energy and the good thing is you can have as much energy as you want. You just have to decide to have more. It is there for you in abundance.

But most people are tired. If you doubt this, you can walk up to most people on any given day, ask them how they are feeling and they will tell you. Often, the response is simple: ‘Oh, man, I’m tired today.’ Ask them why: ‘I don’t know. I got 10 hours sleep last night. I’m just exhausted.’ Walk up to a 25-year-old and ask them: ‘Yeah (yawn). I’m tired for sure.’ Ask them why: ‘I don’t know. I’m young and I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, but I’m exhausted.’

Somehow most people have learned to say this. I don’t actually believe most of these people are tired. For most people, tired is about disconnect. I believe most people are tired when they are disconnected from their lives, their jobs and their relationships.

Energy is a decision. Because when you do feel connected to your life, you don’t feel tired. You have energy! Energy is one of those things that you can just take more of when you decide to be completely connected to your life. You can decide that you need less sleep. You can actually just decide you are a morning person. You can decide that you have energy to work out every day.

I’ll prove this to you. I will prove to you that energy is a decision. Imagine a Saturday afternoon — you know, that Saturday afternoon when you are so tired. You can barely drag yourself to the couch to watch television and you feel yourself fall into the couch. You want to watch television, only your outstretched hand cannot reach the remote. Never mind, you say, I’ll just lie here.’

Then your partner walks in the room having just baked a chocolate cake. ‘Honey,’ they say, ‘would you like a piece of chocolate cake?’

You spring up off the couch and say emphatically, ‘Yeah, babe, I’d love one!’

You found energy. You made a decision to have energy. The simple fact is that you connected to the chocolate cake. You will decide to have more energy when you are connected to your life.

Take the energy. It’s there for you. You simply cannot maximise your level of success and influence without it. Energy is a decision. Write that down somewhere and remind yourself to stay connected each day. How full of abundant energy are you? Give yourself a score between one and 10 on your daily energy level.

Act as if as a management tool

If you are in a management position at work, I want you to consider the greatest leader that you ever worked for. What was it about that person that made people want to follow them? What were the characteristics that made them great? I want you to consider how they approached their posture, eye contact, smile, gratitude and energy level. What did they do to inspire others?

The key is to recognise what great leaders do, and act as if you are leading in the same way they did.

Think of a manager or boss that you had in your life who was a terrible leader of people. Perhaps this person put you down or hurt your feelings in the past. They were a manager who took away your power and you resented their instructions? What were the characteristics of that manager? Consider how that person approached their posture, eye contact, smile, gratitude and energy level. What behaviours of theirs de-motivated others?

Once again, you can use this observation to make sure that these are qualities that you do not want to emulate. Do not act as if you are this person. The interesting thing, however, is that very often managers do demonstrate the same behaviours of the boss that they had when they were starting out. That, by the way, could be a terrible thing. They will be doing the same negative behaviours simply because they are being reactive and it is what they observed from their own experience.

Instead, act as if is about making a conscious decision about the type of manager that you want to be. Consider all of the behaviours you have observed, and act as if you are the leader that inspires others.

Chapter 4 summary

What is the culture of your current organisation? How is your team currently in terms of their posture, eye contact, smiles, gratitude and energy levels? Where would you like to see this culture go? What are the areas that the team most needs to work on?

I always say there are two kinds of offices that I walk into. The first type of office that I walk into I think, ‘Wow, I could totally work here. There is vibrancy and energy. You can really tell that the people that work here are dialled in.’

The other kind of office feels very different. I walk in and I can sense the quiet disconnection that permeates the stale air. I feel like walking up to the receptionist and asking, ‘What time is the viewing of the body? How did they pass?’

Does your office feel like a beacon of light and energy or does it feel more like a morgue? Now that you have given yourself a score in each of these five categories of act as if, I want you to circle the one, two, three, four or five shifts that need instant attention. Within these five areas, you can make change in a moment and instantly you will start the process of acting as if you are the person that you want to become.

Remember, the most important words are the words you say to yourself. In the course of your day ask yourself, ‘Is the body language I am displaying right now useful? If I was going to be the person that I wanted to be, is this the body language I would be displaying?’

Act as if. These are three great words to anchor your success.