5 points : How do I make people like me?

 That’s one of my biggest lessons I’ve learned: everyone can teach you something. Whether it’s someone you don’t like, you do or someone you don’t even know. Never be so close minded that you miss learning opportunities.

How do I make people like me?

When I was a kid I was desperate to get people to like me. I was 14 years old. I brought candy into school every day and gave them to people.

Jeff Kemp, a random kid whose name I still remember, said, “James is trying to buy friendship”. And I laughed then but I was also humiliated because I realized he was right. I was pathetic. Sometimes I still am. I never lost that feeling.

But I’ll tell another story.

Bill Clinton has his issues. I won’t discuss them. I met him once. I was playing at a poker charity event that he was sponsoring. I brought my recently girlfriend (now wife). I was playing poker while she was talking to him.

After about a half hour of him leaning closer and closer in to her I couldn’t focus any more on poker. I got dealt a pair of jacks and ditched it pre-fold to go over there and talk to him and at least introduce myself.

Everyone always says he has an amazing power to get people to like him, particularly one on one. I have to say, those people are right but I didn’t understand how he did it.

Here’s how he did it.

First off, he’s soft spoken. I could actually barely hear him.

So I had to lean in to him a little bit in order to hear him. He’s very tall so I was like this tiny person leaning into a giant soft-spoken parent.

Second, he’s completely focused on you when he’s talking to you. He’s looking at you and listening and not looking at anyone else to see who is more important.

Third, he compares you to people who he knows in life. He said to me (in his soft-spoken, gentle southern accent), “You remind me of my friend Bubba from Arkansas. Bubba is like a brother to me.”

So suddenly I’m like a brother to him.

Fourth, he asks me questions about me. He was RULER OF THE WORLD and he’s asking me questions about me. What did I do? What did I think? He really seemed to value me and who I was. I think he asked more about me than I did about him and his time as President.

Fifth, he has a perfect “social memory”. I didn’t experience this but other people tell me this. He could run into you 20 years later and say, “Hey Bob, how’s your Uncle Ned feeling? How’s Denice? Did she get that nursing job?” This seems to have a big impact on people.

By the end of my conversation I was thinking, “Wait a second. Is Bill Clinton now my best friend?” I was in a glow.

I posted the picture of him and I talking. Because of politics I got a bunch of negative comments and lost about 100 followers on Instagram within minutes.

But there’s nothing wrong with trying to learn from someone who ran the world for 8 years. Like any President, he mostly did bad things (I feel this about all Presidents). And I’m not into gossip but he’s clearly had his personal issues.

But always learn from people. Particularly someone who had such influence in the world. And take a photo and put it on Instagram. Who cares what people think?

This picture says volume James Altucher about what you have described in your answer. I could see Bill completely focus on you and your wife giving her undivided attention to him while you both are talking. This is exactly what “Charisma” looks like I believe. Thanks for sharing this with us.