 What is your number one people skills problem? Do you have trouble starting a conversation? Are you shy? Are you introverted? Do you have problems solving arguments with people? Do you not know how to start a conversation with someone? Do you not know how to carry a conversation? What is your number one problem right now? And We're gonna put it on the board. We're talking about people skills problems And let's see if we can solve a couple of them in the next 10 minutes. So if you're watching right now, you're on Facebook throw out some ideas for me Throw out some comments. What is your number one problem? The biggest issue that you have with social skills? Is it that you don't have enough friends? Is it that your friends You don't know how to relate to them. You don't know how to make new friends. Let's try and do some answers to this, shall we? Okay, so let's pick one here. Which one do we want to pick? Somebody pick one of these for me and we'll do a quick little answer Q&A. We're gonna race through this Chris James says people are judging you. Good. Judge me. Judge me all you like. It'll be good practice, right? If you want to stop judging other people, this will be good practice for you to stop judging me because some of you are watching right now and judging me right now. You're making an idea in your head about who I am and you're judging me, right? So if you want to like eliminate judging, if you want to eliminate judging, then we'll go over that, okay? So let's do two of these ones. Approach anxiety, opening wine, what to say. This is what I do, right? I walk into a social gathering whether it's a party or whether it's a bar or whether it's any kind of social gathering where there are people and I don't know anyone, okay? I walk in with my chest up and a smile on my face, okay? And I sometimes I force the smile on my face. Sometimes I force it. So it's even just like a half smile like this. I'm not like walking around going, but I'm not walking around like this either. I'm walking around like this. See the half smile? See the half smile there, okay? So even with a half smile, when someone sees you for the first time, they're going to think, oh, warm, engaging, someone who's comforting, someone who's not a threat. Do you know why we shake hands? Because back in the day, showing a handshake, showing a hand with no weapon in it was a way of letting the other person know, look, I don't have a gun, I don't have a sword, I don't have a spear. So that's how the handshake came, right? Same thing with the smile in today's world. If you walk around with a half smile like this, people look at you and they go, oh, that's interesting. And here's the thing. If the first time anyone ever lays eyes on you, you are smiling or even with a half smile, their impression of you is about 10 times better than if the first time they lay eyes on you, you're like this stony face. There are 86 muscles in the human face. Okay. There are 86 muscles in the human face. When you smile, you activate them. And when people see you smiling, even if it's just a half smile, they feel comfort towards you. They don't even consciously know it. On a subconscious level, when someone sees you smiling or half smiling, they feel like, oh, that's not a threat. That person's not a threat. Right. I'm going to engage that person in conversation. So sometimes I'm like feeling a bit flat, but I'll walk into a social situation and I'll go, right, I'm walking into a social situation. James, smile. And I won't walk in going, I'm here. Hello, everyone. Look at me. Here's my smile. I'm activating 86 muscles in the face. See? No, I walk in going, it's a little half smile. Okay. Just a little half smile. Here's the best opening line. If you're there by yourself and you want to go and meet some people and you don't know what to say, here's what I do. Hi, I'm James. What's your name? Hello? What's your name? Hello? What's your name? Tina? Hi, Tina. I'm James. What's your story? Okay. So let's just go over that. It's pretty simple. And I know this sounds, it is simple and I know it's hard to do, but it's pretty simple as an opening line. You go, hello? What's your name? I'm James. Hello? What's your name? Or, hello? I'm James. What's your name? Another good follow-up question could be then, what's your story? Now, I'll tell you why what's your story is so much better than what do you do? Because what's your story implies that you're actually really interested to find out something about them other than what they do for a living. Nobody really cares what you do for a job, but most people who ask a boring question say, hey, what do you do? Don't ask what do you do, okay? Eliminate that question from your vocabulary. Instead, ask what's your story? Because then the person will might say, well, I'm Australian and I live in Los Angeles. Well, I'm really passionate about this. Well, I'm just here with my friends and we're hanging out and whatever. There's so many different answers you can get from what's your story. But first things first, if you're going into a social setting and you don't know anyone and you want to start engaging people in conversation, you just walk up with the smile. So the first thing that they see you is with the half smile or the smile and you just say, hi, I'm James. What's your name? Well, hi, what's your name? I'm James and that's it. Now, let me tell you something. The person who goes first, the person who introduces himself or herself has the power. Not that it's a power struggle, but if you are the person who introduces yourself first forever in a day, the person you introduce yourself is going to respect you and is going to like you and is going to think that you are someone of stature because you were the one who went up and initiated the hello. So already you are on this position of power above the person that you're introducing yourself to. The person you're introducing yourself to doesn't have the power. You have the power because you have been confident enough to go up and say hello. Now, when this comes to dating and mateship, women obviously love it when a man walks up to them and says hi and introduce themself because most women don't do that. Most women would love to have a guy come up and introduce themselves to him, even if it's not in a romantic context, even if it's just in a platonic context. Okay? So when you are the first person to go up, if you're a man, you approach a woman, women respect that because it appeals to women's evolutionary mind, which is like man, protector, confident, taking charge, taking control. And so if a man is confident enough to go up and just say hello, already you get respect, already you get points. Question is, do you ask their name? What are you telling your name? You can just, you can move this around, you can experiment, right? You can go, hello, I'm James. What's your name? Or you can just say, hello, what's your name? And then wait for them to say, oh, my name's Tina or John or Christie. And then they may say to you, what's your name? They go, I'm, I'm James. Nice to meet you. What's your story? You know why it seems so simple to march it because it is simple. It is simple. It's very, very, very simple. Okay? So hello, what's your name? Or hello, hi, I'm James. What's your name? You can also do this. Hello, I'm James. What's your name? And then a great question is, what's your story? But with a smile, okay? But with a smile. So just go ahead and practice that. Just practice it with anyone. You can do it in like the coffee shop and just go, hi, what's your name? Hi, what's your story? Just practice it. See what happens. Hanger says, but when you go to pick up girls in a bar, the problem is that every man does that. No, they don't. No, they don't. Every guy standing around going, I'm too scared to go and say, hey, what's your name? So you go and do it. Guess what? Your odds of having a conversation with a girl go up. If you stand in the bar and go, everyone's going up and saying, hi, what's your story? You're sitting there, you're never going to go up. Your odds of actually having a conversation with that woman are like zero. It's not like she's going to walk across the bar and go up and talk to you. The minute you open your mouth, your chances of having a conversation with that woman go up. Pretty simple, okay? So that's a good one. Let's move on quickly and go on to some other ones. Which one do we do now? Which one do we do now? Don't know what to talk about, okay? Don't know what to talk about. Here's the thing. It's really simple. What you do is you take a genuine interest in the other person. You take a genuine interest. That means you ask questions and you're genuinely interested. You're not interested because you saw James Swannick talk about it on Facebook or Periscope one day and you go, hmm, let's roll out these questions here. What do you do? Remember, I said, don't say it. Don't ask that question. Oh yeah, where are you from? Where do you live? Those questions are kind of lame, right? Because they require factual answers back. But when you ask a question that gets them to think and talk about emotion and feelings, then they'll open up to you. And when you ask those questions, they like you because you are taking a genuine interest in the other person. I interviewed Angelina Jolie for the movie Changeling, I think it was called. And I was sitting in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills and I was interviewing Angelina Jolie. And the movie, I think it was called Changeling, it was about, she played a mother whose children were kidnapped. And before I interviewed Angelina Jolie, her publicist came in and said, no personal questions. Do not ask Miss Jolie any personal questions about her kids. And I'm like, inside I'm thinking, bugger that for a joke. I'm asking her personal questions. I don't really want to know about the movie. I want to know about her and her kids and whatever, right? So when Angelina Jolie comes in, I didn't say what was it like making this movie. I didn't say what was the hardest part making this movie. I asked her a question that elicited a feeling. And the question was, Angelina, in this movie, you play a mother of a son who's kidnapped. And your character goes through this horrific traumatic experience. If something as horrific as that was to happen to you in real life, if one of your children was kidnapped, how would you feel? How would you respond to that? For the next five minutes, Angelina Jolie was just talking about how she has security guards for her children and how she worries about Maddox all the time. Maddox is the name of one of her kids. She talked about how, you know, she goes and picks them up from school, all of this amazing personal stuff that other journalists weren't able to get out of her because the publicist says don't ask her personal questions. But all I did was I asked her to talk about a feeling. I asked her to talk about an experience. I didn't ask her facts. I asked her about a feeling or experience. So how do you use this in your own world? Well, when you're in a conversation with someone and you take a genuine interest, you might ask questions like, what are you passionate about right now? Wow, you're really interesting. Tell me more. That's a great one. You're interesting. Tell me more. Or even if you just say, tell me more. Okay. Even if you just say, tell me more, the person that you're talking to feels like you're really caring, like you're really taking an interest. And that is very flattering to people. So if you're stuck for conversation, ask questions, but don't ask questions like, what are you doing for a job? Where are you from? How long are you being here? Ask questions like, what's your story? And then listen to what they say. And if they say, oh, I'm here, I like surfing or whatever, surfing. What's like, how do you feel in the morning when you surf? Tell me about the best wave you've ever caught. Oh, have you ever crashed and like, you know, what happened? What was it feeling like when the waves were like pummeling you into the ground? Can you share that experience? Wow, what did you learn from that experience? Wow, you're really interesting. Tell me more. Tell me more about that. And when you say that to the other person, they're listening, they go, wow, this person's really interested in me. And because they see that you're really interested in them, they like you. They like you. See, nobody really cares about you initially, right? They really care about themselves. And so if you give the other person an opportunity to talk about themselves and talk about feelings, talk about experiences, and they can see in your eyes that you're genuinely interested, not interested because James Swanic told you to be interested, but you're genuinely interested, then they're going to feel that connection. And so five minutes into the conversation, you might say, oh, I'm just going to go and get a drink. And they'll secretly be going, oh, I don't want this person to leave. I want this person to stay in the conversation. I want to introduce this person to my friends and all these other people. Or they might say, hey, let's swap numbers. Let's catch up sometime because guess what? You've taken a genuine interest. Does this make sense? Does this make sense? Give me a hell yeah. Just write down hell yeah. Let's do another one. Okay. By the way, if you want to get one of the best books I've ever read on people skills is Keith Farazzi's book Never Eat Alone. And there's another one called Winning with People by John C Maxwell. Now I took my personal notes on those books and I stuck it in a PDF. So if you want me to send you my personal notes on on those books, sorry, it's Winning with People and Never Eat Alone, which gives you a whole lot of social skills. You want my personal notes on it. They're only like three pages long. Go to my website, JamesSwanic.com. Okay. And there's a little link there. I will email you my personal notes on that, JamesSwanic.com. Anyone got any questions about that? And before we move on and answer a few other ones, anyone got any questions about getting that? Go to JamesSwanic.com. In fact, I'm going to just show you where it is on my website right now. Cool. So I'm going to bring this up here. Okay. I'm going to go to JamesSwanic.com and I will show you. There you go. There's my website. Okay. JamesSwanic.com. If you go here and here says get my book notes on three life changing books. If you put your details in there and click that button, I will send you my personal notes on social skills and Winning with People and Never Eat Alone. That way you don't need to read the whole book. You can just see my notes and get the best, best, best parts of it. Before we go on, let's do a quick little Snapchat here. Who follows me on Snapchat? If you follow me on Snapchat, give me a me exclamation mark right now and I'll give you a shout out. All right. I'm doing a live call here on my Facebook live page. We're talking about social skills and teaching what to say to people when you first meet them. So if you guys watching now want to see what I see, like you want to see the camera I'm looking into, follow me on my Snapchat and do it now. When's the best time to do anything? Now. Do it now. Okay. So let's do another one real quick and then we're going to have to wrap this up because I got stuff to do. What else do we want to do? Which one do we want to do here? Which one of these problems? Which one do we want to do? Anxiety. Okay. You want to do your anxious around people? Is that the issue? Is that the problem? Drunk, shy. Okay. So shy and anxious around other people. Anxiety. Okay. So as I understand it, your problem is the issue that you're dealing with is that when you're in a social setting, you feel shy and you're anxious and you're thinking that people are judging you and all that kind of stuff. Is that right? Feeling nervous inside. Okay. That's a common problem. And you know what? I'm extroverted and I can speak in front of cameras and I can speak in front of a crowd, but Chris, I get anxious sometimes. It's perfectly normal, right? I get anxious sometimes. Even me, I stand in front of a stage of 700 people and I talk and I get anxious. I get nervous. When I go into a new social setting and I don't know anyone, even though I'm walking, I'm going, hi, I'm James. Nice to talk to you. What's your story? I'm still nervous as well. You're never going to lose that nervousness. Okay. You're always going to have it there, but here's the thing. You either recognize it and feel it and go, okay, I'm anxious. Okay. I'm a bit nervous and you do nothing. Or you say, hmm, I noticed that I'm nervous. I realize I noticed that I'm anxious, but I'm just going to feel it and just go on and introduce myself anyway. Okay. So what it comes down to really is if you're anxious and if you're nervous about approaching, just do it anyway because you're only going to, you're only ever going to feel that way. Okay. I'll give you a few little tips to try and calm your nerves, but ultimately when you feel nervous, you just have to say a mantra to yourself, which is just do it or just keep moving forward or just introduce yourself. Remember, Chris, if you introduce yourself to someone first, you have the power and the person that you introduce yourself may be feeling nervous and anxious about talking to you. Cause we like to assume that everyone else is so confident on stage. People look at me and go, wow, that James Swannock is super confident, but I get nervous. So everybody's nervous, right? Everybody's nervous. It's just what are you going to do about it? Are you going to like shrink down and go, oh, I'm nervous. I'm not going to do anything. Or are you going to like chest out, shoulders back and say, effort, I'm just going to talk anyway. I'm just going to do it. Here's the thing. If you are anxious in a conversation, always just go back to be genuinely interested in the other person. Okay. So if you're like, I don't know what to say, don't know what to say, just ask a question and be genuinely interested. Okay. So if you're standing there and you're like, you've done the smile, you're talking and you're like, okay, cool, right, blah, blah, blah. And then you're nervous and you're like, this person thinks I'm an idiot. Oh my God, blah, blah, blah. Just say to yourself James or Chris or whatever. It's okay. Just be genuinely interested. Just be present in this moment and be genuinely interested in the other person. Okay. Ask good question. Another way I like to do is I like to put my feet together when I'm standing there, which forces my chest out. Now here's the thing, right? If you're standing like this, see how my shoulders are summed forward? Then my energy is very low and my breath is very soft. But if I'm standing like this with my chest out and my shoulders back, I'm exuding more power and I'm feeling more confident. Okay. So Chris, here's a little stance that you can do. Here we go. Okay. So here's my feet, right? If I'm standing like this, here's a way that I do it. I'll literally go pigeon toad a little bit. You know, like pigeon toad. And what that does is that it moves my chest out and my hips out and it gives me a more positive stance. Nobody even notices that you're doing it. So it's almost like, look a little goofy or think that you're looking a little goofy, right? Think that you're looking a little goofy, but you're not because what it does is you go from this to this. You go from this to this. And when you hear you're like, I'm anxious. I'm scared. I don't know if they like what I'm saying. I'm not very confident. And now you go like this. Wow. Now all of a sudden, you're like, they're engaged. The people are looking at you going, well, this person's confident. Now you're feeling confident. You change your physiology. You change how you think about the situation. Whenever you're anxious or you're shy, you're introverted and you're scared, just put your shoulders back and start breathing inside. It's okay. Just calm yourself. Become genuinely interested in the other person. Just reset. Just reset. Remember, you deserve to be there in the conversation and the other person might be thinking that they're trying to put on a good show for you as well. Okay. So just remember your physiology. Are your shoulders back? Is your chest forward? Are you breathing nicely? Are you taking a genuine interest in the other person? Because if you change your physiology, you change your thoughts. And if you change your thoughts, you appear very confident. You know why you appear very confident? Because you are confident when people see that. Remember I said at the beginning, if you just have a half smile on your face and the first time they lay eyes on you, you're half smiling or smiling, they're going to be engaged with you. They're going to think that you're fun and confident and open. You're not a threat. Same way. If the first time they see you, even if you're talking to someone else and you're not smiling, if your shoulders are like this, they're going to be like, subconsciously, they'll be like, ah, whatever. But if you're like this, then subconsciously they're like, hmm, that's someone I'd like to talk to. That's a confident person. I want to talk to that person. So there's a few, too quick to judge. Here's how you stop being too quick to judge. You just say to yourself, I love everyone. I love everyone. No matter what they say or what they do, I just love them. I don't need to agree with them. But I just love the person opposite me, even if the other person's being a dick, even if the other person's being a complete douchebag, you just go, you know what? I just love that douchebag. You paint a little picture on their face of like someone goofy, like a clown or whatever. You just go, ah, I just love that guy. That guy's being a douche. That guy's, like you might be thinking, that guy's a complete douchebag. In Australia we call him a wanker. That guy's a wanker. But just force yourself to think, that guy's such a wanker. But I love him. I love him. He's so clueless. So don't judge people. Don't judge people, okay? Because ultimately you're wrong. Ultimately you're completely wrong about people. Do you know who Greg Norman is? He was a former Australian golfer. And you know who President Bill Clinton is, the former President of the United States? Greg Norman tells this story in his biography. He's saying that Greg Norman is very much a Republican, right? He likes the Republican Party. And he was friends with George Bush. Not George W. Bush, but George Bush. He was a President in the 90s. And Bill Clinton became President. And Bill Clinton, when he went to Australia, reached out to Greg Norman's office and said, hey, the President of the United States would like to play around at golf with Greg Norman. Because Greg Norman at the time was one of the top golfers in the world. This is before the rise of Tiger Woods, obviously. And Greg Norman did not want to go and play golf with President Clinton, because Greg Norman thought that President Clinton was a complete douchebag. Because he judged him. Because President Clinton was a Democrat, right? And Greg Norman was a very close friend to George Bush. And he didn't want to meet Bill Clinton. And so Greg Norman didn't know what to do. He didn't want to say no to the request from President Clinton. But he didn't want to say yes either, because he judged him. And so what he did was he phoned up the former President, George Bush, in America and said, listen, President Clinton, who defeated you, has asked me to play a game of golf with him. And I don't want to. What should I do? And George Bush said, you should always respect the office of the President of the United States to play golf with him. And so Greg Norman said, okay, I'll do it. So he agreed to play golf. And Greg Norman reluctantly turns up to this Australian golf course. The Secret Service are there to close down the whole golf course. It's just Greg Norman and President Clinton are going to play a round of golf by themselves on this golf course. And Greg Norman turns up and he's like, I don't want to meet this guy or whatever. I hate this guy. And then he says halfway down the first hole after they both teed off, he realized that they were going to be the best of friends. They were going to be lifelong friends. And they played 18 holes of golf. And at the end of it, they were like best buddies. And then they went on to create charities together to raise millions of dollars to help people. President Clinton and Greg Norman, even though Greg Norman doesn't agree with President Clinton's politics, he realized Greg Norman at that time that he was too quick to judge. He was too quick to judge. And he said it was the biggest mistake he made. It was the biggest lesson that he's ever learned, which is don't be so quick to judge people. Everybody has their own journey. Everybody has their own struggle. Everybody has their own issues to deal with. And if someone is angry at you or snaps at you or does something bad, just understand. You don't really know what's going on in their head. They've got their own problems, their own stresses, their own concerns. Just try to love everyone. It doesn't mean you have to take it. It doesn't mean you've got to like sit back like a doormat and take abuse that people give you. But just understand whatever people are doing in life, okay, it's because they've got their own struggles. They don't know your journey. They don't know what you've gone through to be in that situation. So you don't know what they've gone through. But we're all human beings. We're all the same. So stop judging people. You see a homeless person on the street. Don't judge them and think get off your ass and whatever. You don't know their struggle. Now, I used to be, I used to judge people, right? I used to do it all the time. I used to get off your freaking ass and do shit, you know? But now I'm like, I've completely softened my stats. Now I'm like, I don't know their story. I don't know whatever struggles they've gone through. And if you start taking a genuine interest in someone and asking and digging a little deeper, you might just find that you've got a connection there. You might just find that your entire opinion of them will change. I've been to Tai Lopez's seminars and people have approached me and they look, they're wearing crappy clothes and they're young and they're just like, whatever. And I'm like, in my mind, I'm judging them going, Oh, these guys are whatever, you know, not worth my time to talk to this person, only to then find out that they've made $2 million last year on an online business. I was, I completely judged them as being like a, you know, like a struggling college student or whatever. And in my mind, straight away, I'm like judging them in that situation. But then I realized, well, in actual fact, you can't judge a book by its cover, right? Everyone is different. Everyone has a story. And that was completely and utterly wrong of me. So now I just forced myself sometimes to just be open to everyone. Now, when I say forced, it's not like I'm reluctantly doing it. We'll always instinctively judge someone, right? We see someone, we're always going to judge someone. We're always going to do it. We're human. Okay. So you never, it's never going to end. But when you feel yourself judging someone, when you feel yourself judging that person, get out of your head and go, Okay, I'm now open to this person. I'm going to give this person anything. I'm just going to be open, completely open. And you're right. Even if they are struggling in a college kid, that is not necessarily bad. It's not in the context of that, on that, of that seminar that I was at. I was getting people coming up to me all the time, all the time I'm talking, and I really wanted to have some higher level business conversations. And so in that moment, I was judging the person because I knew that person was going to take up five minutes of my time. And I was completely wrong to do that. There was absolutely nothing wrong with being anyone, with being a struggling college kid, or whatever. In fact, anyone who turns up at those seminars, I have the utmost admiration for. I appreciate them because guess what? They're taking action, stepping up to the plate and making their lives better. So if you have an issue, I'm just trying to illustrate the point. We're all human and we all judge people in the moment. We all do it. We're all guilty of it. I am guilty of it. But when we start to judge someone, just come out of your head and go, hang on, I'm not no longer going to judge this. I'm going to put my judgments aside and I'm just going to be open. I'm going to take a genuine interest in this person. I'm going to ask good questions. I'm going to ask good questions. I'm going to love this person. How can I serve this person? How can I help this person? Whether it's through an introduction or whether it's just by being interested in what they have to say. Does this make sense? If this makes sense, give me an oh yeah exclamation mark. Give me an oh yeah. Thank you for watching. Remember Snapchat, James Swannick, S-W-A-N-W-I-C-K. Follow me on Snapchat so you can see follow daily things. If you're on Facebook, share this with someone who you think might benefit from what we talked about here. And then on Periscope, tell your friends or posts. Remember, I've got the James Swannick Show podcast in iTunes as well. You can follow me there. And I'm James Swannick on all social media. I gotta go. See ya! Thank you so much for watching this video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel by clicking right here. And make sure you put your phone up and follow me on Snapchat. You know you put your phone up and you take the screenshot and you automatically follow you on Snapchat. 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