Everybody takes one card, and holds it to their head, away from them.

Nobody knows what card they have, but they can tell which card everybody else has.

Other than that, it plays out like regular poker. You bet, raise, etc, and whoever has the highest card collects the money.

But unlike normal poker, where you see your own cards, and have to rely only on body language to gauge the strength of the other players’ cards, you have to guess what your own card is by the body language and facial expressions of the others.

For example, if they look at your card, and burst out laughing, it’s probably a good idea to fold, because you probably have a low card.

On the other hand, if they all look at your card and then fold, it means you’ve got a pretty high card.

This is the EXACT process humans go through when put together in a group setting when the people DON’T know each other.

They quickly look around, and see how “strong” the other people are.

And just like that poker game, we aren’t usually very good judges of our own strength, but we’re VERY good at sniffing out the strengths of others.

Most of us UNDERESTIMATE our own strengths. Which is why we can be surprised when people come to us for guidance or ask us for our opinions.

Unless you’ve wanted to be a world class politician since you were a kid, you probably don’t go into situations looking to take charge.

The problem is, neither do most other people.

That card game mentioned above gets pretty interesting when everybody has a medium strength card. Nobody knows whose is higher, and nobody knows whose is lower. People spend a lot of time looking at the other cards, and try to find their place among them.

This is the same in groups. Most people sit around, waiting for somebody else to take charge.

Why do that?

Why not take charge? Why not step up and help everybody out?

After all, you’re not stepping on anybody’s toes. You’re not taking something from them. You are actually doing what they WANT you to do.

Most people are terrified to lead. Most people are happy to be followers.

Nothing wrong with that. Leading can create stress, anxiety, and you’ve got to make tough decisions that might not always work out.

But the benefits are extraordinary. Genuine respect, admiration, and support.

Luckily, being a leader in any group starts with a simple decision.

Are you ready?

Frame Control

Without rapport,  you can’t do much. 

I know that you’ve heard this over and over and over again, but despite how widespread the idea of rapport is, few people practice it.

Why is this?

For one, it’s one of those things where we say to ourselves, “Oh, THAT? I already know about THAT!”

Another is that it IS pretty simple. It’s not like learning some of the other advanced stuff. It only takes a few minutes, literally, to fully understand it.

But maybe the biggest reason many people don’t practice it is because it’s easy to forget.

Especially when you get into a conversation with somebody where the outcome is pretty important.

Which in and of itself, presents a paradox.

On the one hand, when you’re with your friends and family, the outcome of any conversation isn’t usually that crucial. But that’s where you have the most rapport, built right in.

On the other hand, when you’re trying to get a phone number, or close a sale, or talk about something very important, rapport usually isn’t built in. 

Which means you’ve got to take some time and build it.

But most of the time, we’re so nervous that we simply forget. Forget to set it, and forget to check it.

Which means most people are done before they start.

Whenever we’re talking about anything regarding sales or relationship creating, we usually refer to it as a “numbers game.”

Talk to enough people, and you get what you want. Simple in theory, but often times very difficult in practice.

Even if ten percent of the people you talk to fall in love with you and your idea, that means nine out of ten will not only NOT be in rapport, but they’ll be sending you covert signals of “get the heck away from me!”

I don’t care who you are, but this doesn’t feel good to ANYBODY.

Now, on the one hand, you could FORCE yourself to build rapport. Force yourself to match their body language, rate of speech etc. 

Now, this will significantly increase your success. Maybe even a lot. But you’ll still be talking to a lot of people that want nothing to do with you.

What if there were a better way? A way to project an image where people would WANT to be in rapport with you?

Where all you’d have to do is simply show up, and the work is already done?

Instead of walking up to strangers who are thinking, “Who IS this guy…” they’ll be thinking “Wow! She picked ME!”

Instead of imposing your world on others, they’ll be pre-qualifying themselves to you.

How do you do this?

Frame Control

A few social scientists have made names for themselves doing pretty interesting “experiments.”

In one experiment, they took a bunch of guys all pretty random, and sent them out into the social club scene in a large city.

They followed them with “data collectors” who only asked one question. They would walk around, find people who remembered these guys. They’d flash a quick picture, and then ask the person, as they remembered them, to quickly rank them on a scale of 1-10.

So each particular guy had his own average. But then they had them behave two completely different ways when they walked in the place.

One way was to walk in with shoulders slumped, eyes down. The second way was to walk in with shoulders back, head up and eyes forward.

On the 1-10 scale, the difference was two points. Simply by walking more confidently, 6’s became 8’s, and 8’s became 10’s.

In another experiment, they sent the same group of guys out to restaurants, a bunch of different times each. (This was a long while ago, the study was done in the 70’s).

Each time, the guys said they’d left their wallets at home, and asked if it would be OK to write a check.

In half of the experiments, they were dressed professionally. In the other half, they weren’t.

And just like you’d expect, the professional looking guys had no problems. The casual guys did.