How To Be Charming: 2 Secrets Backed By Research
nt to know how to be charming? Ask yourself: What do you want in any friend or partner? Someone who is happy for you, wants the best for you and delights in your successes. Right? And research agrees: Being happy for people during their good times is more important than how we deal with the bad: What really makes couples bond? How they handle the good times, not the bad. What about conversations makes people like you? How you add to their good feelings in…
12 minutes
NYPD Hostage Negotiators On How To Persuade People: 4 New Secrets
m pretty sure I just heard a gunshot. And that means she's dead. Hold on, I guess I better back up and explain... A 911 call came in. A domestic dispute turned into a hostage situation. The perpetrator has a gun on his wife and child. ESU (Emergency Services Unit, basically, the SWAT team) arrived, as did 4 NYPD hostage negotiators. And me. We stacked up outside the door to the apartment. But things were not going well. Shouting between the husband and wife was…
9 minutes
Out Of Control Kids: This Is The #1 Mistake Parents Make When Arguing With Kids
w do you deal with out of control kids? The authors of the bestseller How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk have some great ideas that can help any parent. It's really powerful, impressive advice. But here's the odd thing: reading the book, I could have swore I had seen similar ideas before. And I had... When I was interviewing and researching FBI hostage negotiators. No, your 9-year-old Jimmy probably isn't committing serious acts of violence (except maybe against…
10 minutes
How To Get Rid Of Anger: 3 New Secrets From Neuroscience
ey're one inch from your face, boiling with rage, screaming and yelling at you. And all you want to do is scream and yell back. But you know that's not going to be good for anyone... I've talked before about how to deal with others who are angry and irrational, but how can you control those emotions in yourself? Looking at the neuroscience, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. So let's dig into the research on how to…
8 minutes
Difficult Relationships: 5 Easy Ways To Improve Them, Backed By Research
metimes your closest and most important relationships are also the most difficult. Why? Columbia business school professor Adam Galinsky and Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer have an answer: All your relationships are both cooperative and competitive. We work together with the ones we love but we also have a bit of rivalry going on at times. It's natural, but difficult. That competitiveness can be why friends and loved ones can have such a positive and motivating influence on us. But it can also…
9 minutes
Power of Empathy: 3 Ways Empathy Can Improve Your Life
es it ever feel like people are all self-absorbed jerks? Like they're not listening? Only in it for themselves? You're not crazy. Empathy is declining. Via Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It: A recent study at the University of Michigan revealed a dramatic decline in empathy levels among young Americans between 1980 and today, with the steepest drop being in the last ten years. The shift, say researchers, is in part due to more people living alone…
11 minutes
How To Be Loved By Everyone: 6 Powerful Secrets
would all like to know how to be loved by everyone. In the end, who are our favorite people? Those who understand us and listen. Someone we can turn to and honestly say, "You get me." That really comes down to one skill: listening. And it's something most of us are awful at. In an age of sub-zero attention spans, focus is a superpower. And focusing on others is even more rare. When I asked the #1 love researcher, John Gottman, what the best thing…
7 minutes
How To Improve Your Writing: 5 Secrets From Hollywood
anks to the internet, people are reading and writing more than ever. But is it me, or does it seem like the quality of that writing has gotten worse? However, this can be a good thing. These days, solid writing really stands out. It can be a competitive advantage in anything you do. Want to know how to improve your writing? Or have you ever thought about crafting the next great novel or screenplay? Want to know how to write like a pro? Me, too. So I called…
11 minutes
