Varsha Das's Key Ideas from How to Talk to Anyone : 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships
by Leil Lowndes

Make your posture the biggest success barometer. Winners stand with assurance, move with confidence, smile softly with pride.

Habitual good posture is the first mark of a big winner.

Imagine a party of 500 people and a 3 year old crawling up to your feet and turning a precious face up to yours and beaming a toothless grin?

Instantly, you would turn towards the baby and welcome with a beautiful big smile. Similarly, we need to address the inner babies within each of us when we meet new people.

A warm smile, a total-body turn and undivided attention is all they need.

Pivoting 100% towards the new person shouts "I think you are very, very special".

When you encounter someone, play a mind trick. Visualise him/her as your long-lost old friend. And you will amaze yourself. The delight of rediscovery fills your face, the air sparkles with energy, your body language buoys up. The difference is extraordinary.

Love begets love, respect begets respect.

Control unnecessary body movements if you want to come across as a credible person.

Watch your audience's reaction carefully and then plan your response.

Express yourself but keep a keen eye on how the listener is reacting to what you say.

The power of visualization is indeed powerful. Visualise yourself as applying all the above techniques and everyone is gravitating towards you.

A whatzit is anything you wear or carry that is unusual and can potentially spark curiosity of others in a large gathering. It could be a social aid to seek business rewards or new friendships to new acquaintances, the list goes on.

Likewise you need to develop a keen eye to spot the "Whatzit" in the people who you want to talk to, probably the CEO or the leader.

If the person you want to meet is not wearing a Whatzit, try to find more information about the person. And then use these facts and turn it into icebreakers.

Now that you are ready with your set of ice-breaking questions, but you find the person engrossed in conversation with their own group. How do you break in that group?

Stand behind the swarm of folks and open your ears. Wait for a word or two and use that as a wedge to break into the group.

This is the most common question we come across when we meet someone new. But most of us answer it wrong way. We mention the name of the city/town and assume people would know everything. 

Rather learn some engaging facts - history, geography, business stats and few fun facts about your place that the listeners can comment on. And most importantly, the hook should relate to the type of person who you are speaking to.

While conversing ever faced with the deadlock of what to say next and a deafening pause and awkward smiles?

Become a parrot and 'curiously' repeat the last few words your conversation partner just said. This can get the person in front of you again talking and all you need to do is to listen.

Encore!

This is what appreciative audiences chant when they want another performance. 

This is the sweetest sound that one would always want to hear.

"Tell them about a time when...", shines the spotlight on them and you get them up and running with their conversation.

It is not the outfit and hairs and accessories that need to be checked before heading to a party. You must stock up on latest news before leaving for the party. 

Actually not just for party, I would say before meeting anyone this should be the daily ritual.

Yes, you don't want to come across as a ruthless networker by asking these 4 words to a complete stranger.

Practice the following 8 words:

How do you spend most of your time?

This new wording gives them a choice of telling about work or leisure.

Think what interest could this person have in my life?

Tailor your "verbal" resume accordingly.

Punch up you life to sound interesting, fun and impactful as the situation demands.

Every job has some benefit to the society and putting a benefit statement just like sales people do can bring more life to your job.

Don't use common words that you use already in your conversation.

Make your vocabulary rich and creative to set yourself apart.

Curate your personal thesaurus and replace your commonly used words with the "glorious" ones.

Substitute a word a day for 2 months and you'll be in the verbally elite.

To enrich your social conversation, start every sentence with a 'You'.

Address them with a 'you'.

This gets a more positive response.

You must share the sentiment of the receiver before sharing any bad news.

Always keep your receiver in mind.

Then deliver it with a smile, a sigh or a sob.

Otherwise you would be called as 'insensitive'.

There are times when you don't wish to respond to certain questions and they keep on asking you.

In those cases, become like a broken record where you being unruffled simply repeat the same words in precisely the same tone of voice and keep on repeating on every unwelcome cross-examination.

This would shut the heck up.