Lately I have been reaching out to people to see what I can do to make it easier for them to find and make friends. I didn’t have a lot of confidence for much of my life and I can definitely understand a lot of the trouble and frustration I was hearing. One common theme is that they would try to join or start a conversation and once they began to introduce themselves they could ALREADY tell that the other person just had no interest whatsoever. Does this ever happen to you?

Maybe you’re at a party, you walk up to a group of people, try to join the conversation and they give you ZERO interest.

Maybe you’re out and about with your friend – let’s call him Steve – and run into one his buddies. He introduces you two, and after the introduction Steve’s friend just talks to Steve and completely ignores you, as if you aren’t even there.

Or maybe you’re in line at a coffee shop and try to strike up a conversation with the person in front of you. You ask her what her favorite drink is. She turns her head around, says she just gets regular coffee, then looks forward again not saying another word to you.

So what’s the problem here? Are people just “colder” these days? Has the art of conversation just vanished from planet Earth?

No! You just need a stronger first impression. Before you say your first words, you need them to think, “Oh, this is someone I’m interested in speaking to.” Not “I hope this person doesn’t try to talk to me!”

People actually LOVE talking to other people and a single conversation can be extremely rewarding. However, it can take a good amount of effort to have a meaningful conversation with a stranger. It also opens the door to a number of potentially uncomfortable or undesirable situations for the other person. For these reasons, people are hesitant to open up to strangers. They may have thoughts like:

“What if this person is strange and it’s difficult to end the conversation?” “What if the conversation is awkward?” “What if this person makes me feel unsafe?” “This person doesn’t interest me. Why would I want to waste time speaking to him when I could be talking to all these other people?”

So, how do you change the tide? Rather than incite those types of thoughts, how do you provoke thoughts like these?

“Hmm, he seems interesting. I’d be interested in hearing what he has to say.” “She looks fun to be around. I bet we’d get along well.” And if you’re first impression is strong enough, something like this, “I really, really hope he tries to talk to me!”

Whether they think them consciously or subconsciously, these are thoughts people actually have. They may not say them just like this, but you are always somewhere on their scale of interested or disinterested to talk to you.

So how do you improve your first impression so that people want to engage with you rather than pretend you’re not there?

You need to come off as a person of high value.

Yes, you also want to BE a person of high value. That definitely will help you make friends. But in order to improve your first impression, you need to nonverbally communicate that you are a high value individual.

Some of you may be thinking, “Rob, I know people who have crap jobs and barely any money but are amazing friends and awesome to be around.”

If so, just know that those friends DO provide value. The more people you can help and the better you can help them, the higher value you are.

Think of value like this:

Negative value is someone the world would be better off without. You don’t like being around them, they are negative and you’ll be in a worse mood if they are around you.

Zero value is someone that isn’t really noticed, or their good and bad qualities balance each other out.

High Value is someone who people want to be around. You learn from this person, see qualities in them that you want to instill in yourself, they make you laugh and you even get satisfaction just knowing that they enjoy your company.

Some of the qualities of a high value person can take a long time to master – confidence isn’t something that people learn overnight – however, there are some lessons that, if understood, can be learned, practiced and developed quickly while delivering excellent results.

Here are the most important changes you can QUICKLY make to dramatically increase your chances of success before you ever introduce yourself:

1) Smile.

You must smile when you are greeting someone for the first time. There are so many reasons for this. It shows that you are happy, you are comfortable in your skin, you have more energy – specifically, positive energy – and you are pleased to have the chance to meet this stranger.

Smiling even sends positive signals to the other person’s subconscious mind, through brain cells call mirror neurons. As Susan Perry of BrainFacts.org writes here:

“Mirror neurons appear to let us “simulate” not just other people’s actions, but the intentions and emotions behind those actions. When you see someone smile, for example, your mirror neurons for smiling fire up, too, creating a sensation in your own mind of the feeling associated with smiling.”

This isn’t to tell you that you want to manipulate other people into liking you. It’s just to point out that happiness is contagious and people will get a better first impression of you when you are smiling.

2) Exude Confidence by Using Confident Body Language

Just like smiling, conveying confidence is so important because of what it signals about you to other people. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to be cocky, or think that you’re better than everyone, or walk around with your chest puffed out like you just won the fight after school in the park. Not at all. It just means that you are confident about the decisions you make, you are comfortable being who you want to be, and you believe in your own set of values that you don’t sway from easily. People are drawn to this because confident people are in control of themselves and the situations they are in, and because they know how to get what they want.

For some people it will take a lot of work and time to really gain a lot of confidence. But regardless of where your confidence is, you can make some quick changes that will really increase the amount of confidence you portray. And not only that, by doing these things alone you will actually start to develop more and more confidence. Which means you need to start using confident body language NOW. So what does confident body language look like?

In the book Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand is describing a statue of the legendary character Nat Taggart, who embodies accomplishment, ability, courage, and strength, and was the greatest businessman of his time. This is how she describes it:

“He held his head as if he faced a challenge and found joy in his capacity to meet it. All that Dagny wanted of life was contained in the desire to hold her head as he did.”

This is EXACTLY what confidence looks like. Now here are some quick ways to convey confidence wherever you are:

Stand up straight and don’t slouch. Practice this by standing with your back to a wall. Your heels should touch the wall and so should the back of your head. This is what standing up straight looks and feels like. As my water polo coach told me in high school, “Fix that posture, Riker!”

Practice this by standing with your back to a wall. Your heels should touch the wall and so should the back of your head. This is what standing up straight looks and feels like. As my water polo coach told me in high school, “Fix that posture, Riker!” Keep you head up and look out at the world in front of you. If your eyes keep meeting the ground, you will reek of low confidence and it will destroy your first impression. Instead, pretend you are Nat Taggart, as if you are excited to take on whatever the world thinks it can throw at you. Hell, instead of pretending, BE EXCITED.

If your eyes keep meeting the ground, you will reek of low confidence and it will destroy your first impression. Instead, pretend you are Nat Taggart, as if you are excited to take on whatever the world thinks it can throw at you. Hell, instead of pretending, BE EXCITED. Own the space around you. If you are in a crowed space and someone’s arm bumps into yours, don’t just move out of the way to make room for theirs. Keep your arm there so they realize they entered your territory and let them move theirs out of your way. This can take many other forms though. If you are sitting, feel free to take up a whole seat’s worth of space, spread your legs (men), and sit comfortably. There’s no need to be a jerk or anything, just don’t make yourself uncomfortable so other people can be more comfortable. You need to value yourself more than that.

If you are in a crowed space and someone’s arm bumps into yours, don’t just move out of the way to make room for theirs. Keep your arm there so they realize they entered your territory and let them move theirs out of your way. This can take many other forms though. If you are sitting, feel free to take up a whole seat’s worth of space, spread your legs (men), and sit comfortably. There’s no need to be a jerk or anything, just don’t make yourself uncomfortable so other people can be more comfortable. You need to value yourself more than that. Have a nice, firm handshake (yes, you too women). When you introduce yourself and shake someone’s hand, grab it so you have a comfortable grip (if they pulled it back a little you could pull it right back), but not hard where you are squeezing their hand. There is no reason to hurt a person the second you meet them! You want the base of your thumbs to meet. If your hand grabs their fingers or vice versa, it makes for a very awkward, uncomfortable handshake. It’s the worst!

When you introduce yourself and shake someone’s hand, grab it so you have a comfortable grip (if they pulled it back a little you could pull it right back), but not hard where you are squeezing their hand. There is no reason to hurt a person the second you meet them! You want the base of your thumbs to meet. If your hand grabs their fingers or vice versa, it makes for a very awkward, uncomfortable handshake. It’s the worst! Dress well and stay groomed. I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but just know that what you wear says a lot about you. You’re style should reflect who you are. The only time you shouldn’t dress to be the person you are is if you are dressing to be the person you want to become. One thing to note is that you want your clothes to fit you nicely. This is much more important than having expensive clothes. Also, you want your clothes to flatter your good qualities and downplay your bad qualities.

3) Truly Believe that Your Life is Awesome.

Regardless of your situation in life, you need to see the positives and realize how lucky you are. I know it’s easier said than done, and as cheesy as this sounds, I am dead serious. When someone asks you how you are doing, which is a question everyone hears SO friggin’ often (and is the reason you should get good at answering it), you should answer with something like “so awesome!” Or even just “I’m great!” About five years ago I changed from answering with “I’m alright” to things like “I’m awesome” and “couldn’t be better!” (while meaning it) and it made such a difference in the way people responded and viewed me in general. No joke. I could ACTUALLY notice the difference in the way people would interact with me. People EAT this up. Think about it – when you start responding like this, people think you are higher value because you seem happier, more confident, and more positive, which are all great reasons that people would want to spend time with you.

By truly believing that your life is awesome, your happiness will radiate from you and bleed into all facets of you life. People will notice this and be much more open and accepting of you.

You might not even need to change anything about your life, just your perspective of it. Find the good things in your life and be grateful for them. It takes work, especially if this is a big change for you. I work at being more grateful every day and it absolutely pays off.

Final Recap.

Here’s a quick recap for improving your first impressions:

1) Smile as you are approaching the person you are going to meet.

2) Use confident body language at all times of your life, especially right before and during your conversion. Make a conscious effort to practice this every day.

3) Truly believe that your life is awesome.

Let me know what you think.

What did you find most helpful from this post? Please let me know by commenting below.

Adios.