HOW TO READ PEOPLE:HERE'S HOW…

ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS MUST LEARN

As an entrepreneur, learning to read people better is a skill you must have.

That way you will be able to understand how the other person is feeling and

thinking. And thus, shape your message and style of communication in the best way possible to get it through faster.

As humans we all experience the following common things – recognition, regimentation,

relationships and result. And the skill to read people better, can be applied

in all of the above areas.

But what should you be reading or listening for?

What is even there to read from other people?

There are tons of things to watch out for when reading people…

These can be broadly classified into the following three categories:

Verbal cuesVocal cuesVisual cues

TIP NO.1

Learn to read yourself better to read others.

Observe how from a neutral position of not knowing anything about a person, you begin to form strong opinions about them soon after they start having a conversation with you.

What you are doing is actually picking up on the subtle cues we just mentioned. The better you get an understanding of what they are. So the first step is to be very highly self-aware to know when and how you are forming opinions about other people.

TIP NO. 2 Identify their attention.

This is usually very easy to identify and most of us are already good at it intuitively without much practice.

  The basics are eye contact and the position of their bodies.

If your listener is angling out from the conversation while still listening to you, then they are probably distracted, uninterested or just in a hurry to go somewhere.

  Another practice is to ask engaging questions in

conversations to keep your listener hooked. It could also be just a relevant comment and not even a question. Engagement is the best indication of attention.

TIP NO. 3

Concentrate on their emotions.

80-90% of your listeners’ attention will be concentrated in their facial expressions and the voice box. There maybe other subtle tells but it is usually mostly just the face and voice.

While the main expressions of happiness, sadness or anger is easy to tell. The most important things to focus on is micro-expressions. Most people have momentary flashes of uncontrolled real emotional expression of their faces and you must be quick to catch that.

TIP NO. 4

Do not just concentrate on behavior, learn to predict from patterns:

Better than just identifying body language is to use that understanding to identify patterns.

For things like when there are two strangers talking and the guy leans over and leers over the girl, she will dash out of there in a minute.

Or in job interviews, where your interviewer goes “I see your resume and we will call you back”.

These are common examples of patterns that you as an entrepreneur must also learn to identify in the business prospect.

TIP NO. 5Do not always rely on your judgmental brain.

We all form opinions about people within as less as 3 seconds of meeting them. But chances are they might not be completely accurate at all times and our brains may lie to us.

For instance, a line at a supermarket counter is moving slower than others. So, you immediately feel that the girl at counter is new to this and it maybe her first day. Hence, she is inefficient. And you begin to feel angry.

But it may as well be that she is just in pain because she got hurt while coming to work or is just a little slow because her parents are cousins!!! So, keep an open mind and be scientific more than stereotypic about your opinions of people. People in most cases are influenced by some form of external force or stimuli that is causing the problem.

TO BE A BETTER PEOPLE READER

The best approach is to be a more open person with a higher

degree of self-awareness.

THANK YOU FOR WATCHING

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