Page 55 - ConvinceThemFlip

neutralize the fight-or-flight response
Department, sitting in front of a bus stop. Similar results.
“He didn’t come across as someone I should distrust,”
said one officer. “He was dressed decently and came up
in a mannerly way. He didn’t appear to be threatening,”
said the other. “But did you like him?” asked the reporter.
“Sure, he was a nice guy.”
About a month after the story appeared, I got a call from
a well-known columnist at The New York Times, who said,
“It might work in those other places, but this is New York.”
He put me through the wringer, throwing everything
at me from an attractive, annoyed-looking young woman
alone in Grand Central Station to the famously rude (it’s
a bluff) waiters at the Carnegie Deli to a woman who sells
tokens down in the subway, and more. The results were
always the same—I connected 100 percent of the time.
So how come? What was I doing? And why do I believe
that just because I can make people feel comfortable,
relaxed, and ready to step out from behind the shield in
ninety seconds or less, that anyone can?
Here’s what I took into consideration, and you’ve read
enough by now to do the same.
In every one of these situations, I first asked myself,
What do I want? This is supremely important. I wanted
the individual I approached to trust me. With that in mind,
the question that made sense for me to ask a complete
stranger in a situation with zero context was: “When you
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