Express your INTEREST- get value
We humans are thirsty of getting importance and attention. Everyone is the hero of their own journey and it’s a common observation that we all want to flex our achievements or whatever uniqueness we have. Yes! You can get people’s attention. We can win other’s respect but it’s a by-product. First, we need to show interest in other’s lives. If you gradually take interest in people’s personal activities, asking general questions like their future plans, daily work routine, diet plan or academic progress, you are definitely going to win their interest in you. People will have an extra place in their hearts for you.
Let me illustrate this with a recent example. A few days back, I was just done with dinner and was sharing some leisure time with my family, I casually asked my younger sister about her current activities in school. She was going to participate in an Arabic language speech competition the next day. I told her I wanted to listen to her speech even though I don’t understand Arabic. She was surprised as well as delighted that I took interest in her personal activity. I heard her recorded speech and appreciated her. I noticed that from then she started giving me extra respect and took more interest in my activities.
One more important thing is, try to know peoples’ topics of interests. We all love to hear about stuff we are interested in. I randomly asked one of my close friends about his future career planning. He was interested in getting permanent residence in US or Canada. I wished him luck and gave him some suggestions. Now every time we meet, we always discuss getting PR abroad and he really loves to talk about it.
All of us like people who admire us. Showing genuine interest wins friends for you as well as develops their interest in you. Always give importance to the name of the person when you meet them the first time. If you know their name the next time you meet, it will help a lot in breaking the ice. We can easily win the attention, time and cooperation of even the most sought after people by becoming genuinely interested in them.
