Olina Qian

I have two nieces. Emily is three and half years old. Jasmine is five months old.

After my first nieces Emily was born, I almost went to see her everyday. Not only because I like her so much, but also because I have time during that period. But after my 2nd niece Jasmine came out, I was super busy for the past months, so I didn’t get much chance to see her yet.

I visited my brother’s home this Tuesday. At that time, Jasmine just wake up. My brother was holding her. I came up and talked to my brother. Jasmine noticed me and looked at me as a stranger.

My instinct reminds me immediately that I need to smile to her. According to a survey. The first impression is very important. She is so young, so she is using her little brain to judge if I am a friend or enemy now. So I started to showed my biggest smile to her. And I started to say: Hey Jasmine, I am Olina! Oh, you are so cute, I like you very much!(God knows if a five months girl can understand it or not. But for sure she can feels it!)

Jasmine kept looked at me for several minutes. Since I was smiling to her. She started to smile back to me. I asked her if I can hold her. Seems she is not object to it. So I started to hold her and played with her. We become great friend.

On my way home, I was reflecting about the senario. According to Dale Carnegie Golden Principle No 4, Smile is a great ice breaking tool and Principle No 7, Be generiously interested in other. I felt that tonight it is a great example for it.

Actually I want to take one step back and think it deeper. First of all, smile is good, but it is not enough. If you don’t like people you are talking to or networking with. Even if you smile to them. Everyone has an embeded BS detector to know you truely mean it or not. 2nd of all, only interested in others is not enough too, you need to like people you talk to or working with before they like you.

According to another survey, people will only remember 10% what you say or what you do after the conversation. But they will remember 100% what they feel about you for a long time. So which means it doesn’t matter what you say or what you do to people in certain way. They will only remember the feeling that either you like him or you don’t like him. In the meantime, they will have a judgement base on that feeling: Either they like you or they don’t like you.

So it’s important to align with what you say, what you do with what you think. More importantly, if you want to networking with people, you need to be worth to networking with. We may not bring everyone resource, money or anything benefit for them, but at least, we can like them, from your heart and tell them sincerely that you like them. Try to treat each and everyone around you as a human being and treat them as a special one in the way they like to be treated, then you will win everyone you met as a friend.

So my suggestion today is: Smile to people, be interested to people. Furthermore, try to like people you are talking to or networking with, from deep in your heart!