Interpersonal competence is one of the keys to success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success. If you want to become interpersonally competent, you need to do three things. 1) Get to know yourself. Use this self knowledge to better know and understand others. 2) Build solid, long lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in your life. 3) Resolve conflict in a positive manner, one that will enhance your relationships.
I came across a great eBook last week, The Luck Factor, by Richard Wiseman. I was struck by one of the principles on page 5: “Lucky people build and maintain a strong network of luck.” As I read more about the network of luck concept, I realized that it has a lot to do with what I call creating positive personal impact and with relationship building. Building a network of luck has three components: meeting a large number of people, being a social magnet and keeping in contact with people. Take a look and see for yourself…
“Lucky people dramatically increase the possibility of a lucky chance encounter by meeting a large number of people in their daily lives. The more people they meet, the greater opportunity they have of running into someone who could have a positive effect on their lives.
“Social magnets attract others because, without realizing it, they exhibit the types of body language and facial expressions that other people find attractive and inviting. Lucky people exhibit exactly the same pattern of behaviors. Upon reviewing video tapes of interviews with (self described) lucky and unlucky people, we found that lucky people smiled three times as much as unlucky people, and engage in far more eye contact. The lucky people also tended to engage in three times as much open body language as the unlucky people.
“Lucky people are also effective at building secure and long-lasting attachments with the people they meet. They are easy to get to know and most people like the. They tend to be trusting and form close friendships with others. As a result, they often keep in touch with a much larger number of friends and colleagues than unlucky people. This network of friends helps promote opportunity in their lives.”
The common sense point here is simple. Successful people are interpersonally competent. Interpersonally competent people build strong relationships. According to The Luck Factor, strong relationships help you make your own luck – and success. It’s not difficult to make your own luck by building relationships. Just do three things: 1) say hello to people, initiate conversation; 2) act in an inviting manner, make eye contact, display open body language and smile; and 3) stay in touch with the people you meet, turn contacts into relationships.
That’s my take on The Luck Factor and interpersonal competence. What’s yours? Do you have any stories to share about how chance encounters turned into lucky relationships for you? If so, please share them with us in a comment. As always, thanks for reading.
Bud
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