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Table Of Contents

Welcome

First Impressions Matter

The Benefits Are Endless

The 7 Core Elements Of Connecting

Building The 7 Core Elements In 5 Minutes

1. Attraction

2. Trust

3. Respect

4. Similarities

5. Enjoyment

6. Understanding

7. Caring

Quick Action Guide

Thank You!

(If you are looking for something to quickly help you, jump to the Quick Action Guide. You can always come back later to get more details and a better understanding of the action steps later.)

Welcome

I’m Rob Riker. Welcome to Connecting In 5 Minutes – The Ultimate Guide.

I’m going to show you how you can easily create amazing first impressions in the first five minutes of meeting a person.

Let me ask you:

Has this ever happened: you’re meeting someone for the first time, and instantly it seems like they are put off by you?

Have they already decided they don’t like you? Or worse, do they just ignore you, like you aren’t even there?

You try to say something, or ask them a question, and they put ZERO effort into their response.

It’s as if no matter what you do, this person just doesn’t care about getting to know you.

And the worst part is, they haven’t even been around you for five minutes! How can they possibly know that they don’t like you?

The reason? They got a bad first impression of you.

I’ve been there many times, and every time it sucks. But even worse than the uncomfortable feeling and self-doubt it creates, is knowing that relationships that could’ve been amazing are stomped out before they ever get a chance to begin.

That’s why I created this e-book. To prevent moments like this. To help you create great first impressions, where people want to get to know you better rather than pretend like you don’t exist.

In this guide, I’ll show you the 7 Core Elements of Connecting – the necessary building blocks for any relationship.

Then, I’ll go through and show you simple, actionable ways to quickly develop each of the Core Elements.

If you use the lessons learned here, great first impressions will be a regular part of your every-day life.

But first, I want to share a story that taught me an invaluable lesson.

Learning The Hard Way

“You have to be kidding me! How the hell did I not get this internship?!?”

That’s what I yelled when I realized I wasn’t going to get the internship at San Diego Gas & Electric. I really wanted a good internship to prepare me for my upcoming university graduation, and now it looked like I just ruined that chance.

I remember it vividly. I was in my apartment bedroom when my face started burning. My heart was beating quickly and my palms were getting clammy. I was getting nervous and started to panic.

This was so hard on me because I thought I was a shoe-in. I had gone through three interviews and, in so many words, had pretty much been told I had the position.

All that was left was one social event. I just had to mingle with employees and managers before they gave me the job.

Apparently I messed something up. I must have rubbed an important person the wrong way.

But that didn’t make sense to me. I thought all my conversations went fine that night at the social event.

So I emailed Matt, one of the interviewers I got to know pretty well. I thanked him for the opportunity and asked if he had any advice for future interviews.

He gave me a few unmemorable pointers, and at the end of his email he asked me, “Is it true you didn’t wear a tie or jacket to the social event?”

My heart dropped to my stomach.

It was true. I had worn a suit and tie to all my interviews, but I thought this event would be a little more casual. So I wore a button up shirt with slacks and dress shoes. Still dressy, but not suit and tie dressy.

And that was what it came down to.

Someone at the social event had a bad first impression of me and I lost the internship because of it.

First Impressions Matter

That rejection from SDG&E burned a valuable lesson into my memory that I will never forget.

First impressions matter. A lot.

A first impression is like a movie trailer. If you don’t like the trailer, you won’t be interested in seeing the movie. Well, if a person gets a bad first impression from you, they won’t be interested in getting to know you, let alone doing you any favors.

It’s too bad because the trailer may not be indicative of how much you would like the movie if you actually saw it. And that person may have ended up really liking you had they gotten the chance to know you.

But that’s reality. That’s why first impressions are so important. They give people a tiny bit of information about you, which is then used to determine what they think about you.

Since my botched chance at working for SDG&E, I’ve learned a lot more about the psychology of first impressions. I’ve learned how people “thin slice” to make judgements about the people they meet.

I’ve also learned that much of it is subconscious, so people don’t even know the complete reasons for why they do or don’t like someone when they first meet them.

Because of this, I decided to dig deep and really learn how to systematically make great first impressions.

I’ve used this knowledge to make many great friends from all over the world. Every time I moved to a new city, and each time I travelled abroad, I used these skills to create amazing relationships with complete strangers.

And the best part of all?

You can do the same.

The Benefits Are Endless

First impressions can have a profound impact your life.

For instance, your first impression can be the difference between whether:

You land your dream job, or you go back to sending résumés into cyberspace.

You meet your new best friend, or you don’t even get the chance to get to know each other.

You create a fun, social environment at work, or you constantly get put on the outs.

You get upgraded to first class, or don’t get a seat on the flight, even if yours has been cancelled (I’ve seen this happen many times over, and the airline’s customer service agents knew the customers for less than five minutes. They even told me to my face that they choose how to help people based on the way they act in the first minute of meeting them!).

Personally, I love it when people want to get to know me better. It feels good when, after talking to someone for a few minutes, they are asking me questions. They are interested in getting to know me better.

If you want to build great relationships with people, your odds will go up significantly if you learn to make a great first impression.

Alright, I can tell you’re ready. So let’s get to it!

The 7 Core Elements Of Connecting

There are seven Core Elements for connecting with any person. Each one is vitally important for building and maintaining strong relationships.

Think of the Core Elements as pillars that support the relationship. If you want to grow your relationship, you need to increase the strength of the pillars that support it.

Over time, you can add to or subtract from each pillar. When you are adding to one, the pillar becomes stronger and the relationship strengthens. When you subtract from a pillar, you weaken your bond with that person.

Get good at this and you will be amazed at the relationships you can build.

The seven Core Elements of connecting are as follows:

1. Attraction – When you build intrigue and the other person is interested in getting to know you better or interested in building a relationship with you.

2. Trust – When the other person believes you are telling the truth and that your actions are authentic. When they believe you are not trying to manipulate them in any way and that your intentions are honest.

3. Respect – When they value your qualities, abilities and achievements, and the way you handle yourself.

4. Similarities – When you and another person share something in common, and the other person realizes this (possibly because you pointed it out).

5. Enjoyment – When the other person enjoys being around you and having you around.

6. Understanding – When someone believes that you know and understand who they are, as well as when they believe they know and understand who you are.

7. Caring – When someone believes that you care about their well being.

The more you build any and all of these pillars with a person, the better your relationship will be. Detract from any and the relationship will worsen.

The good news is that you don’t have to be perfect in all of them, or even any of them. And sometimes you aren’t very good in one area, but the others will make up for it.

Building The 7 Core Elements In 5 Minutes

However, the stronger the Core Elements are, the stronger your relationships will be.

Can you build up each of the seven Core Elements in five minutes?

Not as much as you can in a year, a month, a week, a day or an hour. But you can definitely start the process, so that after five minutes you have a solid foundation started for each pillar.

This is where most people fail. Maybe they build up a few of the pillars, but don’t touch on the rest. Or worse, they detract from some, putting them in the negative. This is like replacing a granite foundation with a swamp. Sometimes it’s impossible to ever go back to granite.

For example, you might lose someone’s trust by lying to them. Or maybe they just saw you lie to someone else. If that happens right when you meet the person, it can be really difficult to recover.

The goal of this guide is to show you specific ways that you can build each of the seven Core Elements in the first five minutes of meeting someone.

If you apply this to even just half of the new people you meet, your life will change dramatically for the better.

So let’s get started with the first of the seven Core Elements – Attraction.

1. Attraction

What do I mean by attraction? Someone is attracted to you when they are either:

Interested in getting to know you better, or…

Interested in building a stronger relationship with you.

Being interested does not mean they will actively try to talk to you or become your friend. It may just mean that if you two start talking, rather than doing everything they can to end it and leave, they might be willing to stick around and see where it takes them.

If they aren’t interested in getting to know you, they won’t.

These are some of the things a person might think in their head if they are attracted to you:

“Wow, it’s impressive he knew that. I wonder what else he knows. Who is he, that he knows things like that?”

“She’s hilarious. I’m having so much fun around her. Is her life usually this fun?”

“Dang, it seems like she’s friends with really impressive people. Who is she?”

“I don’t know what it is, but he just looks important. Maybe it’s the way he’s dressed and the way he handles himself. I bet he’d be a good person to know.”

But it isn’t always just the allure of who you might be. Someone can be attracted to what they actually know about you too:

“I love that she has such control over her life. She is always able to work out, work on her side business and spend plenty of time with her family.”

“I love how honest he is. He’s always willing to say what’s actually on his mind. That’s such a great quality and I respect it so much.

Let’s take a look at how you can build attraction in the first five minutes of meeting someone.

Building Attraction In 5 Minutes

1. Looks

Looks are one of the first things that a person will judge you for. Having good style and being well groomed go a long way. On top of that, make sure you wear an outfit that portrays the person you want to be seen as.

➤Action: Wear clothes that fit you nicely and portray the type of person you want to be. Also, be well groomed.

That could mean plucking your eyebrows, shaving your neck hair, getting a haircut, whatever. You want to look your best, like you take good care of yourself.

2. Confidence

Before you even meet the person, you want to be seen as doing what you want to be doing, and hold yourself with confidence. This can be seen in your body language, hand and arm gesturing, and if you are having a good time and enjoying yourself.

➤Action: Smile, have good body language, use arm gestures and speak clearly.

Stand up straight with your shoulders up and back, and hold your head up high. Use arm gesturing to emphasize what you are saying and feel free to take up the space around you while doing it. Smile when you meet a new person, and feel free to wear a smile often – you enjoy your life that much.

3. Humor

You want to be seen as someone who is fun to be around and has a good sense of humor. So don’t take everything too seriously. Banter, joke about non-serious things, and have some laughs right from the get-go.

➤Action: Say something near the beginning of the conversation that makes the other person laugh.

It’s a good idea to come up with some fun comments to say for different common small talk topics that you can use intermittently in different conversations. For example, if it’s cold out, I will talk about the weather, ask the other person if they like the cold weather, then say something like, “I love when it’s cold out because I can wear sweatpants, be lazy all day long, and not feel guilty about it!” The more you come up with, the better your chances of being able to use them. Having an answer ready for the question, “How’s it going?” is great because people ask it all the time and it gives you free reign to talk about whatever you want.

4. Good, Positive Energy

Having good, positive energy is attractive. Having a positive outlook on life and being upbeat shows that you are doing a good job enjoying your time here on this planet.

➤Action: Open up and respond with good, positive energy.

Try taking a positive outlook on your environment and the things going on in your life. On top of that, be emphatic and energetic about it. For example, if the weather’s cold I can say how much I love the cold weather and how amazing it is to wear warm, comfy clothes. If it’s nice out I can say how awesome the beautiful weather is and how I love to get outside. And be excited about it: “I’m so happy with this weather right now! I can’t wait to get home and go for a run. I’ll probably skip, dance and frolic for half of my run since I’m so excited!”

5. Show Your Value

If you want to build attraction, people need to know that you have good qualities, are impressive, or have a lot of value. Wealth, athleticism, high status, cool friends, a fun lifestyle and intelligence are almost always universally good qualities. The main concern is that you don’t brag about these things. They just happen to be a part of who you are. So when you tell a story or answer a question, it’s inevitable that they start noticing your value.

➤Action: When you answer questions or open up, include details that express your value without coming off as bragging.

Think of ways to sprinkle your value attributes into answers to common questions like, “How’s it going?”, “What do you do?”, and “Where are you from?” If you own your own business and someone asks you, “How’s it going?”, you can respond with something like, “Life’s great. My business is doing some really exciting new things, and although it’s a challenge, it’s been a lot fun. So things are going well, thanks.” Telling stories about your travels implies that you have the money to travel, go to foreign places, try new things, and like adventures. Anything that is embedded into the story and NOT the focus of the story will imply you are interesting and will help you build attraction.

2. Trust

Imagine being able to talk about a serious, but embarrassing situation to someone, knowing that they will listen and try to help you work through it without judging you or making you feel bad about it.

That’s what trust is. But it comes in many other forms as well.

Trust is when the other person believes you are telling the truth and believes your actions are authentic. When they believe that you are not trying to manipulate them in any way and your intentions are honest. When they trust that you will take their wants and needs into account, and act accordingly.

Trust is a very important part of any relationship – from the very first minute to the end of a lifetime friendship. In the beginning, trust is vital because it makes the other person comfortable being around you.

If someone doesn’t feel comfortable around you, you probably won’t get the chance to get to know them better. That’s why you want to purposefully build trust right when you meet someone.

If you want a chance at forming any sort of relationship, then:

Trust is a must.

Here are some quick ways to build trust in the first five minutes of meeting someone:

Growing Trust In 5 Minutes

1. Confidence

Again, confidence comes up. When you act confidently, people trust you more because you seem to trust your own actions. Imagine someone is looking at you. When you turn your head and notice them staring at you, they dart their head the other direction, as if they weren’t looking at you. They aren’t confident in their decision to look at you. However, if instead they continue looking at you once you see them, and just send a warm smile, they are much more trustworthy because they are subtly saying, “I know you see me looking at you, and it’s fine. I have nothing to hide.”

➤Action: Speak and act with a level of certainty that shows you believe in your own judgement.

When you say or ask someone something, be true to yourself. Speak clearly, loud enough, and with a confidence in your voice that tells the other person that you are comfortable in your own skin.

2. Social Touching

Done properly, touching is one of the most powerful ways to build trust. The key here is to make sure they are comfortable while you are doing it. If they aren’t, take a step back and reduce your touching. Slowly, use less touching that they are comfortable with.

➤Action: Socially touch the person from the get-go with a handshake and brief touches on their elbow or shoulder.

If you introduce yourself, shake their hand. Next, you want to touch their elbow or shoulder, but for no longer than three seconds. Men are more comfortable with shoulder touching, but females are generally fine when you touch their elbow. Do this right when you start a new statement or question, and as early in the conversation as possible. For example: (lightly touching their shoulder or elbow) “You know, I really (take your hand off) think you look like the character Luke from Gilmore Girls.” You want to continue doing this with the person, making sure the whole time that they seem comfortable with it.

3. Congruence

When your body language, facial expressions, voice tonality and arm gestures all match your words, you come off as more trustworthy. Imagine saying, “I’m tired,” with no change in gestures, expressions or voice tone. Compare this to saying, “I’m tired,” putting your hand on your forehead, closing your eyes for a few seconds, sighing, then looking up at the person. Of course, you will seem more tired because your body language is reinforcing and backing up what your words are saying.

➤Action: Use arm gestures, body language, facial expressions and your voice tone to match and “backup” your words.

If you don’t do it much currently, it will feel a little weird and awkward at first. But practice this until it becomes more comfortable and natural. Also, you don’t have to be overly dramatic. It just needs to match the emotion and energy of the statement.

4. Opening Up

When you start talking to someone new, conversations often fail because neither person is opening up. Therefore, the conversation doesn’t have anywhere to go. So you want to get better at offering new information, even when it isn’t explicitly asked for. The good thing is that other people will want to open up to you after you’ve opened up to them. And this will help you build trust with them.

➤Action: Reveal more about yourself than would typically be expected.

Come up with good answers to the common questions like, “Where are you from?” and “How’s it going?” Rather than just answering the question, have a response that provides some personal information, and possibly your thoughts or feelings. Instead of saying, “I’m from Texas.” You can say something like, “I currently live in Texas but I’m really trying to move to California in the next year or so. San Francisco is my absolute favorite city and I love how open and non-judgmental people are there. The social life is amazing too.” Come up with your own and prepare to open up more when you are asked the question. Of course, you want to open up more when asked other questions too.

5. Tell “Secrets”

One easy, and almost cheap, way to build trust is to tell someone a secret. It doesn’t have to be a real secret though. It can be something silly like, “Don’t tell anyone, but I love the show Gilmore Girls.” If you lower the volume of your voice and lean in when you say it, so no one else can hear you, it gives the impression that you are letting them in on a secret. Even if it’s just for fun and not “real.” However, it still works in building trust.

➤Action: Tell the other person a “secret” by telling them something that you pretend you don’t want other people to know.

Often, it works well by starting a sentence with, “Don’t tell anyone, but…” Think of some personal facts that could be construed as embarrassing, but aren’t really a big deal. Like, “Don’t tell anyone, but I think I like this song.” Say it with a smirk showing that you know it’s kind of a joke. Again, come up with these for common questions. Then, you can respond to the question with a “secret” and start building trust. For example, if I’m telling someone where I’m from, I could say, “I also lived in Vermont for a while but I usually don’t tell people that.” Again, with a cute little smirk 😉

BONUS TIP – How to answer any question you want

Some of the actions in here say to have answers prepared for specific questions. Well, how are you supposed to answer a question that someone hasn’t even asked you??

Ask them the question. Then, after they respond, they will most likely ask the question back to you. And even if they don’t, you can answer it anyway because you are on that topic. For example:

You: “Where are you from?”

Them: “Colorado.”

You: “ Oh cool, I would love to live there. I’m from Huntington Beach but lived all over the country for a while.”

The great thing about these responses to common questions is that you can come up with them in your free time, practice using them, and tweak them depending on how you like them and how well they work.

3. Respect

Imagine a scenario where every time you start speaking, people look at you and give you their full attention. You can just tell from the way they are listening that they want to hear whatever it is you have to say.

That is respect.

Respect is when people value the the way you handle yourself. When they value your qualities, abilities and achievements.

You don’t ask for respect.

You earn it.

If you can gain someone’s respect right when you meet them, they will be much more interested in getting to know you. The connection you build will immediately be stronger.

Here are few ways to quickly gain the respect of others:

Gaining Respect In 5 Minutes

1. Confidence

Yes, once again confidence comes up. That’s how important it is. We’ve touched on most of it already, but there are pretty much two aspects to confidence. The confidence you exude from your body language, arm gestures, looking them in the eyes, speaking clearly and smiling. Then, you have the confidence in yourself. Where you say what you want to say, you believe strongly in your ability to make good decisions, and you value your own opinions. Well, another way to show confidence in yourself is to comfortably guide the conversation.

➤Action: Lead the conversation without forcing it.

Apart from holding yourself confidently and saying what you want to say, which you hopefully will already be doing, you want to lead the conversation. This means that you need to confidently ask them that question you’re curious about, or open up to them. Bring up a topic you think will benefit the conversation. Of course, if they are talking you should listen and you shouldn’t change topic abruptly to “lead” it where you want. You just want to show that you are not depending on them to make the conversation interesting.

2. Give Them Respect

Be respectful of the other person, and they will respect you back. If you are going up to a stranger to start a conversation, a good way to show this quickly is to let them know you that you won’t take up much of their time, or that you understand you are interrupting them. However, if you are in an elevator or in line with someone, and they aren’t busy doing something else (like looking at their phone), then you might not need to do this.

➤Action: Respect the other person’s time by saying you won’t be there long or show them you understand you are interrupting.

When going up to a stranger, let them know you are interrupting them or preface your statement or question with a time-restraint. For example, “Sorry for interrupting, but is that the iPad Pro?” Or with a time-restraint, “Hi there. I only have a minute but I’m wondering what kind of boots those are. I love the design.” It will put the other person at ease and they will respect you for respecting their time. And if you hit it off and keep the conversation going, it’s totally OK to continue past the one minute you mentioned.

3. Show Your Value

This is the same as showing your value to gain attraction (see section on attraction). So I won’t repeat myself here. Just know that it will help you gain you respect.

➤Action: See Action #5 in Attraction.

4. Similarities

Commonalities and similarities lie at the heart of building strong relationships. Every time you and another person realize you share an opinion, a feeling, a thought, a hobby or an interest, your connection will grow stronger.

Heck, even sharing the same language can strengthen your bond if you’re in a foreign country.

So make sure to do two things: give the other person easy opportunities to connect with you, and relate to any similarities they throw out there.

But please don’t lie trying to share a similarity. It’s not worth it. Plus, there’s nothing worse than having to remember all the lies you’ve told.

So be yourself. Even people who have many different interests can have lots of similarities. For example, you and another person could have the complete opposite taste in music, but both of you might love how much music motivates you to bust your ass when you’re working out.

If there is one sentence to remember from this section, it’s this:

People like people like themselves.

Now, you just want to do this quickly once you start talking to someone.

Connecting To Similarities In 5 Minutes

1. Give Them Opportunities

It is vital that you open up and give people the opportunity to connect with you. Rather than one word answers, or one topic sentences, give people an array of topics. If someone asks you what you like to do on the weekends, rather than saying, “I really enjoy playing tennis,” try saying something like, “I tend to read, work on DIY projects around the house and spend time with friends. But it’s a must that I get out and play some tennis.” If any of those topics interest them, they can ask you about it. They now have more possible ways to connect with you.

➤Action: Open up and reveal information about yourself that the other person can possibly relate to by elaborating on what you are saying.

Practice elaborating on all questions people ask you. Imagine someone asks you what you do. Rather than just saying, “I’m a bagger at the grocery store,” tell them more about you as a person. Maybe say, “I’m a bagger at the grocery store, but I’m really passionate about software design, and eventually want to do it full-time. I take classes, practice a lot and study in my free time.” The goal is to take a question and turn it into a way to tell the other person more about you than just the simple answer. Give them more opportunities to connect with you.

2. Connect With Them

On the other side of the coin, you need to be connecting with them. Connect with their similarities when they open up to you. That is, if it actually is a similarity. I’ll repeat myself here – don’t lie and say you like something because they do. It’s inauthentic and terrible for building relationships. However, if you do actually share a similarity, relate to it! Ask them to go into more detail. Relate to what they said with a story, or your own thoughts and opinions.

➤Action: When the other person mentions an interest, hobby, thought, or anything you share, let them know by relating to it.

Listen to the other person when you are talking to them. If you need to, ask them a question and try to get them to open up. When they mention something that you share an interest in, relate to it or ask them to tell you more. The topic doesn’t have to be directly related either. For example, if they like to hike and you never hike, you can still relate by saying how you love to get outside and exercise, or that you love getting outside of the house for a while. Make sure they realize you are interested in talking about it more, and if they are too, a connection with build.

BEWARE – Don’t One-up People

One of the worst things you can do is one-up a person or steal their thunder. When someone opens up, you want to be curious, interested, and excited to talk about it. If someone tells you they love reading and they read a book a month, don’t say, “I love reading too. I read at least 30 books a year.”

It isn’t a competition. Instead, connect with them. Say, “That’s awesome! I love reading too. I try to put much of my free time into it.” Or you might say, “I totally like reading too! What are some of your favorites you’ve read recently?”

Also, if someone mentions something that you would like to relate to, either let them completely finish before relating, or, if you are going to interrupt them, give them the spotlight immediately after. For example:

Them: I was river rafting down the Rio Grande-

You: In New Mexico?!

Them: Yup!

You: No way. I’ve done that too. It was awesome! Ok, sorry, just had to check. So you were saying…”

It sometimes makes sense to interrupt people so you can clarify a point or relate to it before it passes by, but make sure you give them the spotlight back and show them you’re curious to hear what they were saying.

5. Enjoyment

Think about your favorite people in your life. I’m willing to bet that they are your favorites because you enjoy being around them (and if you don’t, then maybe they aren’t really your favorite people).

It’s no secret. Of course we like being around people we enjoy. Whenever these people are around, they make life better.

Life is better when it’s enjoyable.

These are the people we look forward to spending time with. When you get into your car to go see them, you get antsy on the drive over because you’re so excited.

So why are these people such a treat to be around? It’s usually some combination of:

Being able to make you laugh Having an upbeat, positive attitude Making you feel good about yourself

Of course it can be enjoyable to feel respected, have someone help teach you something (showing they are caring), or talk about something you love (connecting on similarities), but those are covered in the other six Core Elements. So here we will just focus on the three mentioned above.

Creating Enjoyment In 5 Minutes

1. Make Them Laugh

You don’t need to tell a joke to make a person laugh. You just need to say something unexpected that makes light of the situation. A great way to do this is to have really strong opinions and feelings for situations that are not serious at all. You just need to make sure they know that you aren’t serious. Another way to be funny is to compare something to a popular reference, like a TV show or a famous person. This takes some quick thinking and is more difficult though. I’ll admit, I’m not great at it. But I can very much appreciate other people who are.

➤Action: Say things that make the other person laugh by not taking things too seriously.

Find ways to show them quickly that you don’t take things too seriously and can have fun. Don’t say something to get a reaction, just say it because you think it’s funny. Often times people judge how funny something is by how funny you think it is. Come up with a way to answer common small talk questions with something funny. For example, if someone says it’s supposed to be nice out tomorrow, you respond with something like, “Oh no. I promised my wife I would run next time it was nice out. Shoot. Maybe I will just go out, take a nap at the park, come back and spray myself with the hose.” Since they don’t know you, it’s unexpected and shows that you are just kidding around and having a good time.

2. Have An Upbeat And Positive Attitude

It’s so refreshing to be around people who have a positive view of the world. Not only that, but they see the fun in any situation. For one person, a visit to the grocery store might elicit a comment like, “Damnit, where the hell is the chicken broth.” But a positive, upbeat person, would say something like, “Alright chicken broth, where are you hiding? I’m going to find you sooner or later!” It’s not that they are talking to themselves like a crazy person, but their mindset is completely different. Small things that don’t go their way are not a big deal. They know they can get through any roadblocks and just have a good time going about their day.

➤Action: Be positive and upbeat with your responses.

Someone asks how’s it going. Maybe respond with, “Life’s awesome. I spend most my time doing things I like with people I like. I’m loving it.” Or they ask you where you’re from. You say, “I’m originally from L.A., but I always wanted to live in the mountains. Now that I live in Mammoth, it’s even better than I could have expected. It’s amazing.” Of course, not everything in life is rosy and you want to be honest. So if you need to say that you don’t like something, put a positive twist on it. For example, someone asks if you like where you live. You can say, “It’s definitely not where I want to live, but I’m still able to make it fun. I’m excited though. I plan on moving to Miami within the next year which is where I’ve been wanting to live. I’m lucky to have that option.”

3. Make Them Feel Good About Themselves

People love to feel good, to feel understood, and to be recognized for their good qualities. You can make people feel this way by giving them a compliment. You want to compliment them for something that is important to them. Unfortunately, you usually don’t know what that is right off the bat. You can’t compliment someone for their immaculate strategic planning ability if you just met them. But there are a few things you can notice quickly – their looks/style, their personality, and the little things you learn about them in those first five minutes of meeting them.

➤Action: Compliment the other person early in the conversation.

Steer away from complimenting someone’s physical appearance, but feel free to compliment a specific item of their outfit you like. When complimenting someone’s personality, say something like, “Haha, you’re hilarious. I love how witty you are!” or “Wow, you’re so positive and upbeat, I love it! I always try to keep positive people around me in my life.” If someone says they like a certain show, you can respond with, “You’ve got great taste.” And you can even compliment actions they take. If you see something noteworthy, you can say something like, “Hey, I just saw you help that old lady over there. That was really awesome. It’s great to see someone take a moment to be helpful to a complete stranger.”

6. Understanding

There was a study done in 1997 that tested some assumptions about how people connect build strong connections. Many people believed that pairing two people in one of the following scenarios would increase their chances for building a strong bond:

Pairing people who don’t disagree on important attitudes.

Pairing people who were led to expect mutual liking.

Pairing people with the explicit goal of getting closer.

However, those didn’t make any of the pairs more likely to connect. But they did find something that did make people connect better – having the pair follow a 36-step process of asking each other scripted questions, making scripted statements, and completing statements with their own responses.

The results showed that people build much stronger connections to people when they each learned more about the other person. This can be facts, stories, thoughts, opinions, feelings, interests, etc.

The more you know about another person, and the more they know about you, the closer you two will become.

It shouldn’t be that surprising, but you can use this to help build connections quickly in any interaction.

Building An Understanding Of Each Other In 5 Minutes

1. Open Up

This is very similar to giving people opportunities to connect with you, mentioned in the Similarities section. Your goal is to tell the other person more about yourself through stories, facts, opinions, feelings, etc. Of course, you don’t want to hog the conversation. It should be give and take, roughly 50% for each person. As you talk, they should be getting a better idea for who you are, what makes you tick, what you like, etc. The more they can see you as a real person and understand who you are, the more they will connect with you.

➤Action: Come up with good answers to common questions and embellish your responses.

Just as mentioned for similarities. Really think about what it is that interests you, that makes you feel strong emotions. Be ready to talk about those things. But don’t get too serious with it. For example, I might tell someone about the fat cat in my neighborhood that pees on the sidewalk all the time when there’s a big grass patch right next it. I’ll be frustrated, but smiling and laughing about it because it’s not really a big deal. It might not seem like they are learning much about me, but they are. They are learning that I express my emotions, tell stories, don’t take things too seriously and joke around. But, not everything is a joke. So be a real person and say how you truly feel and think too.

2. Ask Questions

To learn more about the other person, you can’t rely on them to just spoon feed you information. You need to get it out of them. And a great way to do this is by opening up yourself (see above) and asking good questions. You can ask the basic questions – “What do you do?” or “Where are you from?” – but you want to get more out of them. So dig deeper after that. “What did you like about living there?” or “What’s your favorite part about working there?” Of course, these questions don’t always lead to great conversation. But that’s fine, because then you can say, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought up work, after a long day that’s probably the last thing you want to talk about. I’ll fix it with a better topic. What’s the one thing you want to do before you die?”

➤Action: Ask questions to get the other person to open up.

Just make sure you don’t repeatedly ask questions without adding any of your own input. You can keep digging deeper, but you want to throw in your own comments too. For example, they tell you they are from Germany, “Oh cool. I loved Germany when I visited. Oktoberfest was especially fun. Do you miss the German culture?” In this example, you continued digging, but only after adding some of your own commentary. By asking questions, you will get them to open up to you, and you will get a better understanding for who they are as a person.

7. Caring

Caring is the last of the seven Core Elements for a reason. At the beginning of a relationship, caring for each other is not a critical component. In fact, if you care too much too early on, you can weird people out. They might wonder, “Why does he care about me so much. I barely know him.”

However, as the relationship develops further and you build a deeper connection, caring becomes more important. If you want to become someone’s best friend, or build any truly strong relationship, you really need to care about their well-being.

Not only do you need to care,

they need to know you care.

Now, going back to the beginning of the relationship. True, you don’t need to show much caring because, hey, you don’t have any reason to care about this person yet. But there are a few small ways to show that you care without going overboard.

You can be a good listener, showing them that you care about what they have to say.

And you can be empathetic, showing that you can put yourself in their shoes. This is important because it shows the right amount of caring – enough to say you are willing to see what things are like from their point of view, but not too much, like going out of your way to try to resolve their problems.

I’ll show you how to quickly give the right amount of caring in just five minutes.

Caring In 5 Minutes

1. Be A Good Listener

This can be really easy because you don’t have to be creative, or come up with your own thoughts quickly on the spot. But that doesn’t mean you do it passively. Quite the opposite. You need to actively focus on listening to the other person. When they are speaking look them in the eyes about 75% of the time. Every now and then you can repeat what they said to confirm it, or ask them to clarify something.

➤Action: Listen carefully, look them in the eyes and show that you are listening.

You do this by asking questions about what they are saying or repeating snippets of what they say so they clarify or confirm the statement. Don’t interrupt them unless it’s just to clarify or connect to a point, but then let them get back to what they were saying. Here’s an example of showing them that you are listening by asking a question and by repeating what they said:

Them: “I was in Colorado when I broke my arm snowboarding.”

You: “Oh jeez. What city were you in?”

Them: “Well most the trip was in Aspen, but this happened at Copper Mountain.”

You: “Oh at Copper Mountain…”

2. Empathize

Empathy is the act of putting yourself in another person’s shoes (metaphorically) and understanding what they are or were feeling. But you don’t want to say, “I understand what you mean” because that can be insulting if you haven’t actually experienced it and don’t know exactly what it’s like. However, you can guess what they are or were feeling. If someone says they went to the beach and surfed with their friends over the weekend, you can say something like, “Oh man, I bet you had a blast.” Or if someone tells you how annoying traffic was and that it made them late for a meeting, you could say, “You must’ve been really frustrated sitting in traffic.” It’s nothing crazy, you are just stating how you think they felt, which shows that you actually listened and put effort into imagining their situation.

➤Action: Use empathic statements by saying how you think they feel or felt to show you care.

It doesn’t have to be about anything dramatic, just state how you think they feel about something. This shows that you are putting effort into caring about them. The good thing is that this shows you care, but not too much. They won’t be thinking that you are too interested or too caring for the situation. If they get defensive or upset, just say something like, “I’m sorry. I was just trying to see things from your perspective.”

Quick Action Guide

Alright, now that we’ve gone through each of the 7 Core Elements and shown you how you can make a good first impression, I want to give you a summary that you can quickly read.

If you’re short on time, just come to this page and review the actions.

Actions Steps To Quickly Develop The 7 Core Elements of Connecting

Attraction

Looks: Wear clothes that fit you nicely and portray the type of person you want to be seen as. Also, be well groomed. Confidence: Smile, have good body language, use arm gestures and speak clearly. Humor: Say something near the beginning of the conversation that makes the other person laugh. Good, Positive Energy: Open up and respond with good, positive energy. Show Your Value: When you answer questions or open up, include details that express your value without coming off as bragging.

Trust

Confidence: Speak and act with a level of certainty that shows you believe in your own judgement. Social Touching: Socially touch the person from the get-go with a handshake and brief touches on their elbow or shoulder. Congruence: Use arm gesturing, body language, facial expressions and your voice tone to match and “backup” your words. Opening Up: Reveal more about yourself than would typically be expected. Tell “Secrets”: Tell the other person a “secret” by telling them something that you pretend you don’t want other people to know.

Respect

Confidence: Lead the conversation without forcing it. Give Them Respect: Respect the other person’s time by saying you won’t be there long or show them you understand you are interrupting. Show Your Value: See Action #5 in Attraction.

Similarities

Give Them Opportunities: Open up and reveal information about yourself that the other person can possibly relate to by elaborating on what you are saying. Connect With Them: When the other person mentions an interest, hobby, thought, or anything you share, let them know by relating to it.

Enjoyment

Make Them Laugh: Say things that make the other person laugh by not taking things too seriously. Have An Upbeat And Positive Attitude: Be positive and upbeat with your responses. Make Them Feel Good About Themselves: Compliment the other person early in the conversation.

Understanding

Open Up: Come up with good answers to common questions and embellish your responses. Ask Questions: Ask questions to get the other person to open up.

Caring

Be A Good Listener: Listen carefully, look them in the eyes and show that you are listening. Empathize: Use empathic statements by saying how you think they feel or felt to show you care.

This quick guide is great if you are short on time, and especially good for refreshing your memory.

Reading this guide once is great. But if you truly want to improve, read this quick guide twice daily.

It only takes a couple minutes to read and it will help ingrain these concepts into your memory. If you practice using them, they will become second nature.

If you did skip and come straight here, I definitely recommend going through the rest of it when you get a chance. Everything will make much more sense if you do.

Thank You!

I wrote this guide for two reasons. The first is for me. I love writing, and the more I do it, the more I enjoy it.

Learning how to write in a way that helps and inspires others is not easy, but that’s my pursuit. It also helps ingrain these concepts into my head, which in turn helps me improve my relationships.

I strive to continually improve.

But the other HUGE reason I do this is for you. If I am in any way, shape or form helping you improve your life or improve your relationships, then I am completely grateful.

That’s the reason I’m always asking you to reach out and let me know what’s going on – the struggles you’re having, what you find difficult to improve, etc. Your responses help me improve my craft, which then helps many other people, which hopefully includes you.

If you aren’t subscribed to the email list and you want to receive free material, some of which you can’t find anywhere else, you can join here .

I had a friend in college named Ken who introduced me to a self-help book based around social skills. I had no clue anything like it existed. Little did I know that it would put me on a path that would completely change my life.

Something as easy as sharing this guide could do the same for someone else.

If you know anyone who you think would like this, feel free to share it with them. I’m not going to claim that it will change their life, but you never know. Maybe it will.

Lastly, I’d love to hear from you. Ask me a question. Let me know what you want to hear more of. Even vent or just use me as an outlet to say whatever you want.

You can reach me at robriker@thesocialwinner.com .

If you email me, I will respond. 100%.

I hope you found this guide useful. If you did, please let me know. If not, still let me know 🙂

Thanks for reading.

-Rob