Attack of the Friendlies

I like the way Abraham Lincoln said it best, "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

I myself don't have any actual enemies. And I don't know how many of you have them. . .foes, adversaries, maybe even an arch nemesis. In business, rivalries happen, but these other descriptions seem pretty severe. if, in fact, you do have an enemy, what is important to keep in mind is that it is in our best interest not to let these rivalries define us or hold us bacck. In the movies, we get two dimensional characters which represent 'villains' but in real life, most people are really just looking for friendlies.

As they go throughout their days, people are constantly looking for a friendly face. They are looking for acknowledgment, from most people they come in contact with.

People are sending out the signal looking for friendlies searching for people who are going to be nice to them.

Sadly, most of the time, the world ignores them.

Here's an important thing to remember as a persuader: You are going to get ignored. You will put yourself out there, open yourself up and people are going to flat out disregard you. But that's okay. This is a built up cynicism. They don't know better. You do. And you'll know how to influence them in a heartbeat.

So here's a weird incongruity--how is it that what people really, truly want in life is to be acknowledged and accepted and yet they end up not paying any attention when other people are acknowledging and accepting them? We are all conditioned. That's one thing. We set up boundaries early on. Maybe we're protecting ourselves against rejection, sheltering ourselves from disappointment. We're trying to keep up a wall that separates us from the "crazies" out there and we've opted to look down at our feet and appear occupied instead of extending our energy.

And despite all of this, despite the fact that you WILL be rejected, let us commit to stop ignoring people and to cutting back on our own rudeness.

Other cultures are quite different in terms of their unconscious hellos and a general openness to greeting people so while this rudeness isn't confined to the U.S., it isn't as prevalent in other countries.

Several years ago I visited a Latin American country where I was woefully ignorant of their particular way of greeting. And I say woefully, because I had not only misinterpreted, but I had judged in the process.

After getting off the airplane, I noticed the greeting first in the airport. A man tipped his head back and pushed his lips out. Instead of immediately realizing that this was in fact a greeting, I took it that the man was trying to hit on me. Here, if you purse your lips at someone, it's an indication of, 'Yeah, hey, I'd like to kiss you.'

As I went through the day and evening, I encountered the same treatment everywhere I went. Was I all of the sudden a very hot commodity in the gay community? Nope. I wasn't giving off a different vibe. And yet over and over I was confronted with men who apparently wanted to kiss me.

Well. . . As quick as I like to believe I am. . . EVENTUALLY, I realized what was going on. A fellow member of the religious group I was working with did the exact same thing and I was certain he was not looking to hook up with another man. That's when it dawned on me. The constricted and limited cultural frame I was looking through immediately expanded and I began noticing EVERYONE was doing the same exact thing.

Once I realized this, I began to immediately mirror the behavior and my discomfort became acceptance.

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Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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