Find out how to be unforgettable.
As a child, I was an introverted and not very talkative boy who spent the school year avoiding bullies who would stick my head in the toilet, and on vacations, I would go to a small village to see my best and only friend.
He was not a friend my age.
My best friend was in his sixties, and our friendship lasted until he died at 92.
My best and only friend was my grandfather.
At first, my grandfather benefited from my withdrawn attitude because, thanks to my social phobia, he could spend all day talking to me and teaching me all kinds of things needed to run the farm.
But when I turned 14, my grandfather understood that it was time for me to interact with the world, to have friends, enemies, and a girl to dance with at the town dance 🙂
My grandfather’s infallible method to make friends and influence people.
I remember it as if it were yesterday. I had spent the afternoon splitting firewood, and after dinner, my grandfather told me that instead of watching TV, I should accompany him to the entrance of his house to take the fresh air, look at the stars, and watch the people pass by on their way to the dance.
My grandfather’s house was on the main street of the village. A street through which everyone passed in the evening on their way to the bars in the square.
I didn’t understand why he wanted us to sit in the doorway with wicker chairs. I asked him if it was to look at the stars, and he said, “No. We sit here so you can learn how to make contacts, kid.
As time passed, villagers, some alone, some with families, would pass by the door of my grandfather’s house and stop to greet him.
Some of them stopped to give him gifts: some lettuce from the garden, money from land they had rented from my grandfather, etc.
That first night, I realized that my grandfather was like a patriarch for the people.
That night, I learned three essential things
1. Position yourself to be seen
The first thing my grandfather said to me that night as he welcomed one and all at the door of his house was, “To make friends, you sit at the door, so they come to you, not you to them.”
“And if they don’t come?” I asked him.
And he answered me something that I, at 14 years old, did not understand: “They will come, sooner or later people need help, they argue with their friends and family, they need some favor, money, they get bored or lonely, and then they will come, and they will be indebted to you and not the other way around.”
2. Make people feel good.
As the night went on, some neighbors would tell my grandfather that they needed this and that, and when a chore came up that I could do, he started saying that his grandson (me) would help them.
In a notebook, I wrote down the errands I would have to do the next few days.
- Mow the Diaz family’s lawn.
- Take firewood to the Ruiz family.
- Read a novel aloud at the blind widow’s house.
And many other chores that made me go through all the houses in the village during that summer.
The following day, before starting the chores, my grandfather told me, “Go and do a good job, but most of all, make people feel better about having spent time with you than if they hadn’t.”
“How do you do that?” I asked him.
He told me to be friendly, ask them how they were doing, and always say goodbye with an energetic handshake and a smile.
“And does that work?” I insisted. And my grandfather told me something I would never forget: “There is no one thirstier than he who tastes water for the first time. You are that water in a world that is a desert full of loneliness and impolite people.”
3. People change, so they value what remains.
Every night that summer, I would repeat the same ritual: I would sit at the door of my house, people would pass by, and I would write down in my notebook the favors they asked of my grandfather.
But magically, those favors stopped being domestic chores and started things like, “Why don’t you tell your grandson to come over and play with my kids? We have a pool, and I’m sure he’ll have a good time”.
And I started to have social engagements that I would never have imagined; I was invited to play soccer, to go on excursions, and to the dance, and when I wanted to realize it, I was friends with all the kids in town, and I had several girlfriends 😉
But I had to wait to be invited because, as my grandfather told me, “You sit at the door so that they come to you, not you to them because little pleases, but much displeases. Do it every year you come to town; they may forget your name but will always remember you as an inseparable part of their childhood. And that is powerful because they will always be happy to see you. People change, so they value what remains. That’s how you influence people and make loyal friends, being the rock that remains while everything changes.”
It worked.
A virtual hug
AG
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