Influence a First Impression of You
Want to learn how to influence people? The Instant Formula is a recipe of just 4 vital ingredients. Build the PIER towards the other person using Posture, Energy, Intent, and Rapport. Follow the 7 easy steps and it could change your life!
People make judgements in the first few moments of an encounter. That’s fast! People like who they are like and to get a favourable impression isn’t hit or miss – there is a formula from the visual, sound and how you make them feel. In this brief article I’ve crammed in 7 juicy ways to massively increase your influential first meetings with people!
“Who am I?” and who are you to other people? In answer to that question, Dr Sondra Barrett PhD author of Secrets to Your Cells, explained that ‘our body and mind share a common responsibility in self-identity, safeguarding us from danger and knowing what to trust.’. This happens at a subconscious level so it becomes important to be that person others can instantly trust.
Here are 7 Easy ways to Achieve Positive Influence.
1.Posture! People are a mirror of you! Change Your Posture and Energy!
Did you know that changing your physicality changes the way you feel? How you feel about yourself will communicate. In 1971, Albert Mehrabian published a book Silent Messages where he concluded the ‘7 percent rule’ Communication is 7% verbal and 93 percent nonverbal. Simply by changing your posture can instantly change how you feel inside. We also produce neurons that mirror other people’s, so their mirror neurons will begin to match yours! Adopting a different stance will change how you feel and how they feel. Try it now. Think strong and superhero, now think cowering villain, notice how this changes shoulders and spine, head and neck relationship and also how you feel inside. Adopting a stance that makes You look confident will also make you feel confident.A daily practice of getting into a good state will also re-wire the synaptic pathways enabling you to get happier and more positive much quicker!
2. Drop any negativity NOW and step into ’How you do happy’. That’s entirely a choice.
Actor’s do this all the time from scene to scene moment to moment. We all act, we all can change instantly it’s a choice. The question is, if you can be happy just for the fun of it what’s preventing you? SO no excuses especially in an interview or date situation I’d recommend switching up the Happy now. Put it this way, no matter how frustrated you are in traffic, if I handed you the winning lottery ticket how soon would your state change? So, do it. Think of a happy memory and look through your own eyes in the memory. This is a fail-safe way to get that positive internal shift. Another is to anchor some good feelings for future use! And so to…Anchoring
3. Energy and Boost it Instantly! ‘Happy Buttons’ – Here’s how to have them on tap.
Energy of people can be draining or boosting. Every noticed that? If someone has positive energy it kind of rubs off on us and studies have now shown we share energy with each other! So if yours is good makes sense people will want to be near you! Did you know that you can actually create happy buttons? Just for the fun of it? Anchoring is a term used in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) to describe the feeling response that is triggered from an external stimuli. That song that comes on the radio and makes you feel pumped every time it comes on, the photo of the beach that instantly makes me imagine holidays and warm sun and sand or the smell of old books and how that makes me instantly feel comforted. We all have the triggers. You can also consciously anchor them and also improve the intensity of it by what’s known as ‘stacking’, purely by adding more to it, lots of good feelings to the same spot. It will change the way you feel inside at an instant when you then fire it off!
How to create a positive anchor that is useful with first impressions. Emotions that would help you feel your optimum. You perhaps might include: Happy, Excited, Content (perhaps), Curious…(etc)
Remember times in your life you felt for example a heightened sense of happiness. When you have the memory, associate into it and look through your own eyes in the memory, notice how happy you feel! Now, double the feeling of happiness, spin the feeling inside you or expand it, intensify it and when it peaks…..set the anchor by pressing an earlobe.
We are covered in nerve endings and we must be very specific about creating a simple and effective anchor for you. Picking an earlobe is a commonly good one as long as you don’t already press your earlobes – it must be unique and easy to access. Anchors need to be created in the same place to be stacked, so remember where exactly it is, use the same pressure and the same fingers to press it each time. So if using an earlobe, peak positive states and anchor it.
Importantly, release the pressure and the hold as the feeling is coming off that peak. Only anchor when you feel the peak emotive state (or you’ll be anchoring not quite happy…etc, we want it to be heightened positive and impactful). Now repeat many times. Take a few minutes over this. Now repeat the same protocol with the other positive emotions you want to feel.
What you will be left with is a huge resourceful anchor that when needed and when you want to influence feel good chemicals in others, you can ‘fire off’ like a trigger button whenever you need it. The trick with anchors is that they work so use them wisely and when needed and always stack more positive emotions on top. So when you are feeling naturally Amazing! or falling down laughing, press your anchor! It will capture and stack the real intense positive feeling on top of your created anchor ready for future use!
4. Intension and The Power of Direction. Be interested in them!
Start with eye contact and be curious about them. Have the intension to like them! Find what is is about them you instantly really like. It takes your mind from any self-consciousness and also gives the other person the attention which instantly makes them feel interesting.wanted, worth to be listened to and makes natural responses to them much easier and spontaneous. Ask questions about them that allows them to do the talking and respond when you find common ground!
5. Rapport. Be Covert and build some instant bond – People like who they are like!
Build a connection with them and notice do you have anything in common? If so, point it out! If it isn’t instantly obvious notice their posture and gently move into it too and speak from that posture, or notice how they breath and gently jin in their breathing pattern. (clue here is that when they stop talking they may take a breath in so that’s a good cue to breath in too, a few shared rhythmic breaths is an amazing way to make a rapport bond.). If they speak slowly, bring the pace of your speech to match theirs.
6. Learn to Love Yourself! Really,
Influence yourself. The best relationship you have with anyone is the one you have with yourself. You can enjoy improving this one longer term and it will shine through and ripple out through everything you do. The reflections you will see back will improve with each pice of the work you do. this is work you can be doing longer term that will shine through and ripple out through everything you do. The reflections you will see back will improve with each pice of the work you do.
Although much can be communicated by a single word and tone of voice, a lot of communication is body language most of which is unconscious. So have your body language speak the language of love and learn to love yourself in an authentic and confident way.
Making steps to improve your perception of your own self worth rapidly improves how others will respond to you! Self love and expression naturally oozes from those who care about themselves and is noticeable in those who don’t possess it. Its normal for us to produce mirror neutrons and these neutrons communicate to us how someone is feeling. That can in turn change your feelings and your state. With that in mind, if you were someone meeting you for the first time, how do you want them to feel? If you want them to feel good then chances are if you genuinely feel good, they will pick up on that and begin to feel really good very soon in your company.
7. SMILE! It’s a great energy exchange. It reduces stress and even faking it gets the same results Studies have shown that smiling produces an improvement in cognitive abilities and increases your attention span.
Plus people always look more approachable and likeable when they smile. When you smile you cells are smiling.
Authored by Diane Beck, NLP Hypnotherapist and Coach and founder of Health-Success. www.health-success.co.uk Diane works with clients on Skype worldwide and in London and Manchester in the UK. You can email for Life or Performance Coaching with Diane here: diane@health-success.co.uk
