The Secret to Building Rapport and the Challenge of Boredom

I like telling secrets! Especially if I honestly feel something’s been hidden from me and I have discovered the answer.

Like my last post, The Secret to Self-Hypnosis. That “key” to creating a self-hypnotic state was a real mystery to me and now it’s not. And I am now able to put myself into a state I am thoroughly convinced is a state of hypnosis and then guide myself to my desired goals. It’s a great feeling.

And now I come to “The Secret to Building Rapport and the Challenge of Boredom.”

Since this blog is called, “Short Attention Span Blog,” I’ll try to keep it short and not go into all the details that lead up to my discovery. I’ll just cut to the ‘reveal’.

I’ve been studying the subject of rapport and how to create it (induce it, might be more accurate), how to build it and how to maintain it. But I’ve run into a major problem.

To create rapport you’re suppose to ask people all kinds of ‘you’ centered questions, questions about themselves and their interests while you show great interest in everything they say, handing back to them the conversational ball as they reveal more and more to you.

The problem? Actually two, but I’ll deal with the main one: I’m not usually too terribly interested in them. A grave sin, I know. But I’m just not.

And be honest, much of the time they’re not very interesting to YOU either!

(Let me correct that. I’m (we’re) not interested in them as they are usually presenting themselves in whatever social setting we are meeting in. But let’s not get sidetracked into that.)

The solution? Make them interesting. That is, interesting to US. To you and me.

How?

Ask them questions about themselves that WE (you and me) are interested to know about.

For example, yesterday I was in a social situation with a lot of new people and I was half-trying to create and maintain rapport with the couple of different people I was talking to. But at the end of the day I’m not sure I was successful. They seemed intent on asking me about my work and such and they seemed very interested in everything I had to say. It was a little disconcerting! LOL!!

Anyway, one of the people I spoke to was a woman about my age named ‘Toni’ who owned her own business. But instead of talking directly about her business after I’ve asked her about it, she’s asking me questions about my work and how it might impact her business. But the focus is totally on my work. She never even told me what her business is.

Now, today, I’m thinking perhaps what I could have done was ask her not only about her business, but those aspects of starting and running a successful business that I’M interested in. About the psychology of succeeding in her business, facing and overcoming the mental and emotional challenges she faced. And those she continues to face.

This might work because it is something I am truly interested in and would really like to know. So I might not be so easily distracted back onto questions about myself.

And in my conversation with ‘Brian’, I could have asked him about how he motivates himself and his clients and the mental and emotional challenges he faces and how he overcomes them day to day.

In other words, by my questions I could have made both of them more interesting TO ME.

And I wouldn’t have had to FAKE IT.

(Which is exactly how I always felt about Dale Carnegie’s suggestions in “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Fake interest, he seemed to really be saying; but do it sincerely!)

And in addition to showing them real interest and learning from them, I could have gained their approbation by independently reinforcing for them those behaviors, habits and strategies they were using successfully (or struggling to use), directing their attention to the positive outcomes they gain by continuing to do what works for them. In other words, I could have used covert persuasion and sudden influence strategies to strengthen their commitment to doing the best behaviors for their success.

How does that sound? Pretty good to me.

I can’t wait to test it.

God’s Best to You.

Tom K.