How much would you like a toothbrush?

How much would you like a toothbrush?

Open Body Language

Open body language exposes your heart and body (within limits of decency, of course!) and signals cooperation, agreement, willingness, enthusiasm and approval. These gestures are meant to be seen. They show trust.

They say "YES!"

Your body doesn't know how to lie. Unconsciously, with no directions from you, it transmits your thoughts and feelings in a language of its own to the bodies of other people, and these bodies understand the language perfectly. Any contradictions in the language can interrupt the development of rapport.

Nierenberg explains the value of open gestures. These gestures include open hands and uncrossed arms as well as the occasional subtle movement toward the other person that says "I am with you" and shows acceptance: an open coat or jacket, for example, both literally and symbolically exposes the heart. When used together, such gestures say "Things are going well."

Positive, open-body gestures reach out to others.These gestures are generally slow and deliberate. When an open person makes contact with the heart of another person, a strong connection is made and trust becomes possible. (You know the feeling of a good hug? Or a heart-to-heart talk?)

When you meet someone new, immediately point your heart warmly at that person's heart. There is magic in this.

Other common open gestures include standing with your hands on your hips and your feet apart, a stance that shows enthusiasm and willingness, and moving forward in your chair (if accompanied by other open gestures). Leaning forward shows interest, and uncrossing your arms or legs signals you are open to suggestions.

Body Language

Our body language, which includes your posture,X your expressions and your estures, accounts for more than one-half of what other people respond to and make assumptions about.

When people think of body language, they tend to think it means what happens from the neck down. But much of what we communicate to others—and what they make assumptions about—comes from the neck up. Facial gestures and nods and tilts of the head have a vocabulary that equals or exceeds that of the body from the neck down. 

The signals we send with our bodies are rich with meaning and global in their scope. Some of them are hardwired into us at birth; others are picked up from our society and culture. Everywhere on the planet, panic

induces an uncontrollable shielding of the heart with the hands and/or a freezing of the limbs. A smile is a smile

on all continents, while sadness is displayed through down-turned lips as often in New York as in Papua New

Guinea. The clenched fists of determination and the open palms of truth convey the same message in Iceland as they do in Indonesia.

And no matter where on earth you find yourself, mothers and fathers instinctively cradle their babies with the head against the left side of their body, close to the heart. The heart is at the heart of it. Facial expressions and body language are all obedient to the greater purpose of helping your body maintain the well-being of its center of feeling, mood and emotion—your heart.

Volumes have been written about body language, but when all is said and done, this form of communication can be broken down into two rather broad categories: open and closed. Open body language exposes the heart, while closed body language defends or protects it. In establishing rapport, we can also think in terms of

inclusive gestures and noninclusive gestures.

It's Your Choice

The good news is that attitudes are yours to select. And if you're free to choose any one you please, why not choose a Really Useful Attitude? Let's say you just flew into Miami International Airport and you missed your connection for Omaha. You simply have to get on the next flight at all costs, so you go up to the airline desk and shout at the representative.

This is a Really Useless Attitude. If what you want is to get the attendant's maximum help, the best thing you can do is to find a Really Useful Attitude that will create rapport and get his cooperation. I'll probably regret saying this, but I've talked my way out of dozens of automobile-related tickets (I've also failed a few times) and not just for parking infractions.

I'm absolutely convinced that if I'd started by telling the officer his radar was off or by losing my temper and getting angry and telling him I'm the mayor's cousin and I'll never visit this town again, I'd be doomed from the start. If I want the officer to like me, to be understanding and not give me a ticket, then I have to assume a Really Useful Attitude like "I'm sorry" or "Fair enough" or "My, what a fool I am" or "Oh wow, yes, thanks!"

The last time I got stopped, the officer followed me into the village supermarket parking lot and pulled to a stop across the back of my car; I got out and walked to his car. From his physical appearance, with his beard

and body set, I figured he was a Kinesthetic, or feeling based person (you'll learn more about this later), so the first words out of my mouth were "Fair and square." That's because there was no doubt I was in the wrong. He gave me a well-deserved speech about what I'd done and let me off with a warning. The point is that my attitude set the tone of the encounter—because I knew what I wanted.

In face-to-face situations, your attitude precedes you. It is the central force in your life—it controls the quality and appearance of everything you do. It doesn't take much imagination to dream up some Really Useless Attitudes—anger, impatience, conceit, boredom, cynicism—so why not take a moment to contemplate and feel a Really Useful Attitude? When you meet someone for the first time, you can be curious, enthusiastic, inquiring, helpful or engaging. Or my favorite—warm. There's something intoxicating about warm human contact; in fact, scientists have discovered that it can generate the release of opiates in the brain—how about that for a Really Useful Attitude?

Needless to say, all the above are more useful than revenge and disrespect. Ask yourself, "What do I want, right now, at this moment? And which attitude will serve me best?" Remember, there are only two types of attitudes to consider.

A Really Useless Attitude

Any two people can have wildly different attitudes toward the same set of experiences. However, when two people react to the same experience with the same attitude, they share a powerful natural bond. Attitudes have the tendency to be infectious, and because they are rooted in emotional interpretation of experiences, they can be distorted and shaped; they can be wound up or wound down. What happens when people lose control and become angry? They look belligerent (body language), their voice tone is harsh and they use menacing words. They can be very scary to be around. From the point of view of making people like you, or even getting willing cooperation, we call this a Really Useless Attitude. How often have you seen infuriated parents berating their children for knocking over the bananas at the supermarket? Or bored, uninterested shop assistants? Or cranky, impatient doctors? They are all putting out useless attitudes.

I'm not saying whether this is right or wrong; I'm just pointing out that from a communications standpoint it doesn't deliver the message very well. Assuming they have a message. And that's often the point. Useless attitudes tend to come from people who don't know what they really want from their communication.

Remember, the "K" in "KFC" stands for "Know what you want." If you don't know what you want, there's no message to deliver and no basis for connecting with other people. Most people think in terms of what they don't want as opposed to what they do want, and their attitudes reflect this. "I don't want my boss yelling at me anymore" comes with a whole different attitude than "1 want my boss's job" or "I want to be promoted." Similarly, "I'm sick of selling neckties all day long" sends a completely different attitude and set of signals to your imagination than does "I want to run a charter fishing boat in Honey Harbor."

Your imagination is the strongest force that you possess—stronger than willpower. Think about it. Your imagination projects sensory experiences in your mind through the language of pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes. Your imagination distorts reality. It can work for you or against you. It can make you feel terrific or miserable. So the better the information you can feed into your imagination, the better it can organize
your thinking and your attitudes and ultimately your life.

A Really Useful Attitude

No matter what you do or where you live, the quality of your attitude determines the quality of your relationships—not to mention just about everything else in your life. I have been using the same bank branch for the last eight years. From time to time, someone I've never heard of before sends me a letter (spelling my name wrong) to tell me what a pleasure it is to have me as a special customer. No matter how hard they try to
improve their "personalized" service, however, banks are pretty much the same all over, and my bank is really
no different from the rest. So why do I still bank there even though two new, competing banks have recently opened much closer to where I live? Convenience? Obviously not. Better rates? Nope. More services? No. It's none of these things. It's Joanne, one of the tellers. What does Joanne offer that the institution can't? She makes me feel good. I believe she cares about me, and other customers feel the same way about her. You can tell by the way they talk with her. This charming lady brightens up the whole place. How does Joanne do it? Simple. She knows what she wants: to please the customers and do her job well. She has a Really Useful Attitude or, to be more precise, two fully congruent Really Useful Attitudes. She is both cheery and interested, and everybody benefits: me the customer, her colleagues, her company, no doubt her family and, above all, herself. What Joanne sends out with her Really Useful Attitude comes back to her a thousandfold and becomes a joyous, self-fulfilling reality. And it doesn't cost a cent.

THE ALGORITHM FOR GETTING WOMEN TO LOVE YOU

Not only were the Venusian arts (the arts of love) excluded from your curriculum—but they're probably the only discipline teachers didn't try to cram into your brain as you passed from childhood through adolescence and then into adulthood. Let's face it, when you studied algebra at school, the only numbers you really cared about were the measurements of the girl in the tight sweater and the digits you needed to get her on the phone. Those numbers added up to something worth getting your hands on. Enter the Mystery Method. If someone doesn't have health and wants to get it, he or she will need to adopt an algorithm on how to do that—perhaps a new diet and workout regimen. If someone doesn't have wealth and wants to get it, he or she will need to adopt an algorithm for wealth building—perhaps a new investment portfolio. Similarly, in relationships, if someone doesn't have success and wants to get it, he or she will need to adopt the algorithm for success there. I invented that algorithm.

I am your teacher and this is your guidebook to discerning the patterns in dynamic social interactions and then using them to your advantage. This body of knowledge, called the science of social dynamics, has become my life's work, particularly as it applies to the world of pickup. It is about more than seduction and sexual conquest; it also encompasses making friends with men and women alike. But, make no mistake, it is first and foremost about getting laid more than you could ever have dreamed possible, assuming that's what you want. And not just laid but, like Casanova, laid by those gorgeous women who have always seemed beyond reach. For him, it was members of the aristocracy; for you, I'm talking about the women you see walking runways in stiletto heels, on the arms of pro athletes and celebrities, and in the pages of Playboy and Maxim. You can have them. The Mystery Method can give them to you.