How to Win Their Hearts by Being an “Undercover Complimenter”
How to Win Their Hearts by Being an “Undercover Complimenter”
Next in our agglomeration of joy spreaders is a technique I call “Accidental Adulation.” Once, at a small dinner party, the subject turned to space travel.
The gentleman seated to my right said, “Leil, you’re much too young to remember this, but when Apollo 11 landed on the moon . . .” If my life depended on it, I couldn’t tell you what the chap said next.
I simply remember smiling to myself and stretching to get a glimpse of my youthful self in the dining-room mirror. Of course I remember July 1969.
Like the rest of the world, I was glued to the television watching Neil Armstrong’s size 9½B boot hit the moon. However, I certainly was not thinking of moon travel at that dinner party.
I was too busy reveling in the fact that this lovely man didn’t think I was old enough to remember 1969. I assumed his opinion of my youthfulness just slipped out.
Therefore it must be sincere. Sure! Now that I think about it, he probably knew darn well I was old enough to remember the moon landing.
I bet he was using the maneuver Accidental Adulation. But it doesn’t matter. My warm memories of him remain.
Accidental Adulation is slipping praise into the secondary part of your point, putting it in verbal parentheses.
Try It. You’ll Like It. They’ll Love It.
Try Accidental Adulation and see smiles break out on the faces of the recipients. Tell your sixty-five-year-old uncle, “Anyone as fit as you would have zipped right up those steps, but boy, was I out of breath.”
Tell a colleague: “Because you’re so knowledgeable in contract law, you would have read between the lines, but stupidly, I signed it.”
You run the danger, of course, that you will please the recipient so profoundly with your parenthetical praise, he or she won’t hear your main point.
Tell a colleague: “Because you’re so knowledgeable in contract law, you would have read between the lines, but stupidly, I signed it.”
You run the danger, of course, that you will please the recipient so profoundly with your parenthetical praise, he or she won’t hear your main point.
Technique:-Accidental Adulation
Become an undercover complimenter. Stealthily sneak praise into the parenthetical part of your sentence. Just don’t try to quiz anyone later on your main point. The joyful jolt of your accidental adulation strikes them temporarily deaf to anything that follows.
So far we have explored four covert compliments: Grapevine Glory, Carrier Pigeon Kudos, Implied Magnificence, and Accidental Adulation.
There are times, of course, when blatant praise does work. The next techniques will hone your skills in this precarious but rewarding venture.
There are times, of course, when blatant praise does work. The next techniques will hone your skills in this precarious but rewarding venture.
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