#77: Create successful human connections again with Richard Newman

Who’s Richard?

Growing up in the UK, Richard noticed at quite a young age that he didn’t have the same ease as the people around him to make friends. When he turned 16, he was given a book on non-verbal language, and it blew his mind. He decided that he was going to study communication. At the age of 18, he had the amazing opportunity to go to India to teach Tibetan monks English, where he discovered how much you can connect with people nonverbally.

After his retreat, he read over 200 books on communication and began to build up the company he has been running for over two decades, with more than 100,000 people who’ve gone through their training program.

Practice lost skills

A lot of people nowadays are still struggling to get back into the same rhythm as before the pandemic. But if you haven’t practiced giving presentations or talking to people face to face in a while, that can lead to a lot of anxiety and stress. Instead of immediately going into a meeting where you don’t feel very comfortable, you could get together with a couple of your peers and spend some time engaging with them on a human-to-human level. Try having more of those conversations that we’ve lost over the last couple of years. That way you can gradually ease yourself into bigger and more important meetings.

Decision-making in hard times

In these hard and fast-changing times, making decisions can be a hard thing to do. To show the right body disposition, you absolutely must feel right in your body. That can be hard sometimes, but Richard gave a great tip to do that.

To feel right, you have to act in line with your core values! When a big moment comes up to you, what do you rely on? What do you come back to? Write down a page of notes and look for three core values that describe the way you live and want to live. Then, try to write a small paragraph about each value about why it’s so important to you.

The concept of “lift”

Before you’re going to talk to someone, it’s great to keep in mind how you want them to feel at the end of the conversation. Do you want to reassure them? Or do you want them to be excited?

In any case, the concept of LIFT applies. If you can get a person into a more useful and positive state after a conversation, they will feel lifted. In that state, people will have loved spending time with you and are more likely to do whatever you’ve asked them to do.

I hope you have learned some useful tips and tricks in this podcast! Be sure to check out Richard’s website if you want to know more about communication.

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