Your Toolkit For Small Talk – #3 The First Positive Comment

This is the third in a series of 5 blog posts on “Your Toolkit For Small Talk”.These posts are about the way to get the most out of a seated small talk situation. You may find the first post here, the second post here. Today, it is about The First Positive Comment.

Why do you have to give a positive comment at first?

Last week we talked about the Three-Second rule and how to use it.

Today it is still the Three-Second rule, but I want to deepen this thought so it stays with you, hence this whole blog post is all about it: Why does the first comment have to be a positive comment?

Sure, I guess it’s obvious that it might help to open up the other person. Being complimented may warm most hearts. That’s right.

However, there is more to it.

Positive comment – how it affects you

In the last blog post, I mentioned “Self-talk”. A habit, that most of us get into meanwhile approaching a networking event.
During self-talk some think about the beauties of life, some think about a problem to be solved and some just hum a song to themselves.
This inner communication may become a series of associations and might drive us out from the “present moment”. What could happen during a negative association for instance?

What you don’t want to go through during your self-talk

“Thank god it’s Friday; It’s almost weekend; I’ll have some rest during the weekend; I should visit the folks, though; It’s been months that I’ve last been there; I haven’t even called them; Of course, because when I call them they nag me about when will I visit; Then I have to setup their email on their computer; Plus it is a long journey to their place; My whole weekend would pass by the time I get back and I wouldn’t get any rest; Then it is Monday again and work starts over; Then on Monday I would be tired because of their stupid email!”

Then the next thing you know, you feel grumpy. You feel depressed. You are not curious about other people. You are mad about yourself and about the people around you.

I guess you can imagine that the moment you enter a venue in such a mood, you would look for errors everywhere? Even in the people who approach you with the best intentions.

So here comes the question: How would you able to be opened and curious about the person in front of you in such a mood?

It is “mandatory” to be positive

Now here comes why the “mandatory” positive comment is so wonderful.

In order to have a positive comment on someone, you have to switch your attitude. You have to investigate what you might ”like” in a venue or in a person. This might feel uncomfortable, maybe even painful at the first, but you have to turn on your unused senses.
What do you hear? What do you see? What do you smell, that you could compliment?

If you focus on your senses, you can’t, but be sucked back to the “present moment”. If you seek for what you “like” in the present moment, you let go off of your thoughts about the past or the future and you would be opened to the people around you.

Once you are in that mood. Then you are ready to meet new people, to open them up and open up for them.

This is, when you are ready to start networking.