Attack of the Friendlies
Kenrick Cleveland
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.
People are always looking for a friendly face. They're looking for someone to acknowledge them and it makes no difference who you are, where you're going, what you're doing, they are looking for this acknowledgment.
In our world, people are all the time sending out the signal looking for friendlies. All the time they are searching for people who are going to be nice to them.
And the world ignores them.
Here's something to know as you're going in: as a persuader you're going to be ignored. You are going to put yourself out there over and over, and people are most definitely going to be ignored sometimes. Know that this is inevitable going in and don't take it personally. You know better, some others, don't.
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.
Of course this rudeness isn't confined to the U.S, but it's definitely not as prevalent in other countries. Other cultures are quite different in terms of their unconscious hellos and a general openness to greeting people.
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.
I noticed the greeting first at the airport. A man tipped his head back and pursed his lips out. I didn't realize it was a greeting at that point, but instead believed this man to be hitting on me.
And so I was off put and became increasingly disturbed as the day went on because wherever I'd go, I'd encounter this same treatment. Had I all of the sudden become a very desirable commodity in the gay community? No. Was I giving off a vibe that this was a part of my personality? Again, no. I was not. And yet, here I was confronted over and over again with men suggesting, in my mind, that they wanted to kiss.
I like to believe I'm very quick when it comes to signs and gestures, but man, did this take a while to sink in. When a fellow member of the religious group I work with did the exact same thing, it dawned on me--my limited cultural frame distorted a simple greeting into a homosexual advance. My mind expanded, the frame expanded, and I began noticing that absolutely EVERYONE was doing the same greeting.
Once I realized this, I began to immediately mirror the behavior and my discomfort became acceptance.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy prospects using http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion techniques. Get your own completely http://www.uberarticles.com/?id=15449&b=79 unique content version of this article.
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