The Yes Factor

• Every day, many times a day, you are selling you- your ideas, beliefs, products, services, desires. No matter what you do for a living.
• Princeton University has shown that our initial judgments of another person are formed within one-tenth of a second.
• We decide how likeable and competent someone is before we so much as exchange a single word.
• When you reframe a situation, you change the outcome to one that favors you.
• Interviewers make their decisions about applicants very early in the meeting.
• Keep in mind these subtle little cues are the way we communicated before there was language, so they are primal to us.
• When I talk about the alpha you, I’m talking about manipulating yourself- in a good way- to be the best possible you, and getting others to see you in your best possible light.
• Up to 93% of our communication is nonverbal.
• Forty-three finely tuned muscles in the human face can be combined and reorganized into ten thousand possible combinations of expressions.
• A handshake can tell you if someone is dominant or submissive.
• Using and understanding body language benefits the person who has mastered the movements of dominance and confidence. Confidence breeds charisma, which leads to the perception that you are a success.
• Closed body language literally closes you off. When you change position, you can literally change your outlook.
• Our emotional state is usually reflected in our position.
• Look for an occasional deep breath, which signals the person’s need to pull in a large amount of oxygen in an effort to calm the nerves.
• At all times, you need to be demonstrating confidence via good posture, subtle touch, open, smiling expressions, appropriate spatial awareness, cooperation via open arms and forward stance, and reassurance by way of smiles and pats on the back. And, of course, the golden nugget is to make sure that you are always listening to what others say as well as what they don’t say.
• Poor body language is the nonverbal equivalent of throwing in the towel, and it signals defeat.
• Look to his feet to see the direction in which they are pointed. Are they pointed toward you? Then you are probably holding his interest. Are they pointed toward the door? Then they probably want to be elsewhere.
• You can’t make yourself taller, but you can square your shoulders and stand straighter. You can refrain from conveying insecurity by not touching your face, biting your lips, or picking your nails.
• After the first few seconds, that person has an impression of you. After the first three or four minutes, they have a baseline of you to judge future actions by.
• Body language is primal to us.
• The neocortex, with its ingenious ability to deliberate intricate information, is also capable of deception.
• Once information is processed in the midbrain, it reveals itself through movements in your head, neck, torso, and limbs. These movements are primal, nonverbal reactions, and they reveal the truth about you, regardless of what you might do or say or how much you try to control it.
• The best salespeople don’t blather you into submission. They just ask questions and let you take it from there.
• There is more to the placebo effect than previously believed and that we really may be what we perceive ourselves to be.
• Confidence leads to changing you posture, which then changes your body chemistry.
• All great ideas look like bad ideas to people who are losers. It’s always good to test a new idea with known losers to make sure they don’t like it.
• Words evoke emotions and ideas. Just by setting up a phrase, you can gain leverage and plant subconscious seeds.
• Framing can not only help you adjust your own thinking on a topic; it can also alter others’ perceptions about something that might be, at first blush, construed as negative, but that after you’ve framed it appears as a positive.
• Your own daily frames need to be consistently positive.
• Verbal warfare is your frame versus their frame.
• The Pygmalion effect: people with low expectations will do poorly and people with high expectations will do better.
• The words you prime a colleague with can change that person’s mental attitude. (example: smashed literally carries more impact than hit).
• You need to recognize when you are being primed.
• Life, like a mirror, never gives back more than we put into it.
• Blink rates say volumes about us. How frequently we blink is a key to our state of mind.
• The less you talk, the more you’re listened to.
• Your voice gives away secrets you didn’t even know you were keeping.
• The only things that can limit us are our thoughts.
• Liars are not retrieving information, they’re inventing it.
• Here’s how you can tell if it’s a lie. Ask the person (indirectly) to tell you the story out of order.
• If you can make the supply seem scarce, the demand will be greater.
• Don’t always be available and your perceived value will go up.
• Arguing against your self-interest makes you seem more trustworthy.
• Research validates that if we touch an object, the feelings of ownership increase.
• The fastest way to another’s heart is to express interest in that person.
• Your comfort zones limit you and keep you from growth.
• You need to move forward constantly. Come out of what you know in order to grow.

Source: The Yes Factor by Tonya Reiman