10 Commandments to make genuine connections with people

Tezender Singh
6 min readDec 9, 2022

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finding genuine people
Finding genuine connections with people

Are your connections truly genuine especially with the people you often hang out with?

Let’s get deeper into it.

Interested?

Your brain is the most wonderful living creation on this planet. It recruits your body to express your true emotions non-verbally as comfort, discomfort and pacifying behaviors.

Isn’t it wonderful?

lip biting, stroking back of neck and rubbing forehead are cues of uncertainty and discomfort

Now, subtly find anybody near you biting lips or rubbing forehead or stroking back of neck, etc.

These cues reveals true thoughts, feelings, and intentions more honesty and are universally applicable.

Example: You meet someone after a long time. How does your eyes react first?

  • raised eyebrows, normal or squinted eyes?
raised eyebrows
showing interest with raised eyebrows

→ If the person is of genuine interest, like your close friend or relative or other known individual, your eyebrows definitely get raised up showing genuine interest in his presence. Isn’t it?

Think when did you raised both your eyebrows while meeting someone?

Was that person of your real interest? What was his reaction? Did he copied your actions?

normal eyes
normal eyes during conversation

→ If the person in conversation is of some interest, like a stranger on the street, your eyebrows show no reactions. Still you are active to meet that personality. It is most common observation.

eye-shielding
eye-shielding showing ignorance

→ If you are hiding something from a person, you quickly shield your eyes showing ignorance.

This eye behavior is a surely reliable cue applicable in different circumstances.

Think of the best use of this eye behavior in your real life. How many applications instantly clicked your mind? I know there will be many.

These may be to evaluate and develop friendship, avoid enemy, and nurture healthy relationships.

Are you interested in building connections with people genuinely showing interest in your presence? You simply get to follow these 10 commandments.

Interested?

READY to develop a sound leadership quality to dominate the conversation in all types of public speaking.

environment observation during conversation
observing with involvement in the conversation

i. Teach yourself to competently observe your environment.

It helps in vitally comprehending of body language with concerted and effortful observation. Maintain constant effort, energy, concentration and constant practice.

Being consciously active in the conversation is the only path to successful communication.

ii. observe in context ( this is the KEY!)

Some unexpected situations like an accident may hijack your thinking brain resulting in trembling, disorientation, nervousness and discomfort.

Read the conversational environment only with respect to the context of the speech.

iii. Recognize and decode universal non-verbals.

Universal non-verbals are applicable to all human beings irrespective of their individual nature and personality. These include lip compression (discomfort), eyebrows movements (discussed above), etc.

It is the best practice to first decode the cues used generally by all the human-beings. These are easiest to recognize and correctly interpret to gain confidence and positively move ahead with the conversation.

Some universal non-verbals include touching neck, tie, wearings, etc.

iv. Recognize and decode idiosyncratic non-verbals.

Idiosyncratic non-verbals are unique to an individual. The best predictor of the future is the past behavior. It may be your family member, friends, coworkers, etc.

Some idiosyncratic behaviors include talking to pets, having mobile during lunch, wearing socks, not wearing seat belts, etc.

v. Establish a baseline behavior of the person you interact with.

Baseline behaviors helps you uncover their moments of comfort and discomfort most accurately. Some crucial ones are:

  • how they look normally
  • how they typically sit
  • where they place their hands
  • their usual feet position
  • posture
  • common facial expressions
  • the tilts of their heads
  • where they generally place their possessions and belongings
  • normal face and stressed face

vi. watch for multiple tells or clusters

It significantly enhance your accuracy in judgement and improves decision making.

Coming to a conclusion needs multiple cues to significantly validate your observations and conclusions. Make sure to watch for multiple tells and clusters.

vii. seek behavior changes

These strongly signal changes in thoughts, emotions, interest or intent.

With communication through speech and actions, thoughts generate in mind resulting in quick decision making in acceptance or rejection to certain tasks. People with good communicational skills tends to read these cues correctly to lead any conversation.

viii. detect mislead non-verbals

Practice and gain experience with concerned observation and careful judgement.

Some trained professionals are skilled to mislead you with their tricks and practiced misleading non-verbals. To overcome this , it is best to promisingly practice point ii and vi before coming to any conclusion of the conversation.

ix. distinguish comfort and discomfort ( most effective part)

Decipher or succeed in understanding accurately to understand people better. Comfort is contentment, happiness or relaxation whereas discomfort is displeasure, unhappiness, stress, anxiety, tension.

Every human being is observed to be in any of the below given 22 emotional states of mind. It is a best practice to keep yourself and your audience in comfort state during and after the whole conversation. It results in a meaningful, life enhancing and genuine connections building conversations.

22 Emotional States of human-being
22 Emotional States of a human-being

x. be a subtle observant

Unobstrusively work at observation skills enhancement with practice and persistence to enhance your connections building for genuine conversations with like-minded people.

It looks embarrassing and instantly discomforts your audience when you are observing them so closely that they feel uncomfortable in your presence.

Learn to be subtle in all your observations with persistent practice and conclusive learnings.

So, Today is the time to start enhancing your understanding with people with these 10 essential commandments. This is among the top skills that will survive till human race exist.

You can simply jot down these commandments and start your observations:-

1. teach yourself to competently observe the environment

2. observe in context (key!)

3. recognize and decode universal non-verbals

4. recognize and decode idiosyncratic non-verbals

5. establish the baseline behavior of your audience

6. look for multiple tells or clusters

7. seek change in behavior

8. detect mislead non-verbals

9. distinguish comfort and discomfort

10. be a subtle observant

It starts from you! Share it to your closest ones in your community.

You can further read this marketing mindset story to market yourself better and make any conversation meaningful and productive to you. You should aim to dominate and lead the flow of conversation to position yourself better in building genuine connections with people.

Know more about how great leaders implement and master these skills to become successful and dominating in life.

Feel free to comment down your queries below and let me know your interest of further readings.

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Tezender Singh

Student 🚸Mentor for today's struggling 👨‍🦱youths || Performance Marketing Specialist || Public Speaker