What is an Affable personality? , How do I possess this power??
Well for starters, an affable personality is one that attracts, but then this goes way beyond the contextual meaning. So what then is the secret ingredient to living an affable lifestyle.
We must know that our personality is the sum total of our characteristics and appearances which extensively distinguishes us from all others. The clothes we wear, the lines on our faces, the tone of our voices, even down to our individual imaginations and thoughts, all these contribute to the distinctive characteristics of our personality. whether your personality is attractive or not is another ball a game all together.
"Attractive Personality is the "fulcrum" on which you must place the "crow-bar" of your efforts, and when so placed, with intelligence, it will enable you to remove mountains of obstacles" - Napoleon Hill. This one lesson, alone, has made scores of Master Salesmen. It has developed leaders over night. It will teach you how to transform your personality so that you may adapt yourself to any environment, or to any other personality, in such a manner that you may easily dominate.
By far the most important part of your personality is that which is represented by your character, and is therefore the part that is indirectly visible to the people you meet and share your common values with. The style of of your clothes, the state of your mind and their appropriateness undoubtedly constitute a very important part of our personality, for it is true that "people form first impressions of you from your outward appearance" - "The Law of Success". The the manner in which you shake hands poses as a platform that forms an important part of your personality, and goes a very very long way towards attracting or repelling those with whom you shake hands.
The expression of your eyes also plays an important role in the definition of who you are, I remember watching the news on Aljazeera TV network when it was reported that a Chinese reporter "Liang Xiangyi" made a dramatic eye roll after another journalist asks a question during the annual meeting of China’s National People’s Congress.source.
Imagine the the different definitions and tags that people would raise on her behalf, hence the expression of your eyes plays an important role in your personality, for there are people and they are more numerous than one might possibly fathom, who can look through your eyes into your heart and see that which is written there by the nature of your most secret thoughts.
The vitality of your body - sometimes called personal magnetism - also constitutes an important part of your personality.
A brief outline of the outward media through which the nature of our personality is expressed in way as to how it prompts attraction or repulsion to those we see or meet is discussed in few words.
A few years ago as a sales intern, a young lady called at my office and sent in her card with a message emphasising that she must see me personally. No amount of coaxing by secretaries could induce her to disclose the nature of her visit; therefore I made up my mind that she was a poor old soul who wanted to sell me a book, and remembering that my own mother was a woman, I decided to go out to the reception room and buy her book, whatever it might be.
Please follow every detail thoughtfully; for you too might learn a lesson in master salesmanship from this incident.
As I walked down the hallway from my private office, this young lady, who was standing just outside of the railing that led to the main reception room, began to smile. I had seen many people smile , but never before had I seen one who smiled so sweetly as did this lady. It was one of those contagious smiles, and I got caught in the spirit of it and began to smile too.
On reaching the railing the young lady extended her hands to shake hands with me. Now as a rule of conduct, I do not become too friendly on first acquaintance when someone calls my office, for the reason that it is very hard to say "no" if the caller should ask me to do that which I do not wish.
However, this dear young lady looked so sweetly innocent and harmless that I extended my hand and she began to shake it! Whereupon I discovered that she not only had an attractive smile, but she also had a magnetic handshake. She took hold of my hand firmly, and the very manner in which she went about it telegraphed the thought to my brain that it was she who was doing the honours. she made me feel that she was really and truly glad to shake my hand, and I believe she was.
Now I have shaken hands with thousands of people in my public career, but I do not recall having ever ever done so with anyone who understood the art of doing it so well as this young lady did. The moment she touched my hand I could feel myself "slipping" and I knew that whatever it was she had come after she would go away with it, and that I might aid and abet her all I could toward this end.
In other words that penetrating smile and that warm handshake had disarmed me and made me a "willing victim". At a single stroke, this old lady had shorn me of that false shell into which I crawl when sales men come around selling , or trying to sell that which I do not want. This gentle visitor had neutralised my mind and made me want to listen.
But here is the stumbling point at which most salespeople fall and break their necks, figuratively speaking; for it is as useless to try to sell a man something until you have first made him want to listen, as it would be to command the earth to stop rotating.
Note well how this young lady used a smile and a handshake as the tools with which to pry open the window that led to my attention; but the most important part of the transaction is yet to be related. slowly and deliberately, as if she had all the time there was in the universe (which she did have, as far as I was concerned at the moment) the young lady began to crystallise the first step of her victory into reality by saying " I just came here to tell you (what seemed to me to be a long pause) that I think you are doing the most wonderful work of any man in the world today.
Every word was emphasised by a genuine gentle,though firm, squeeze of my hand. and she was looking through my eyes and into my heart as she spoke. After I regained consciousness (for it became a standing joke among my co-workers at the office that I fainted dead away) I reached down and unlocked the little secret latch that fastened the gate and said; "come right in, dear lady, - come right into my office" and with a gallant bow that would have done credit to the cavaliers of olden times, I bade her come in and "sit a while".
Although one might say that maybe the affable lifestyle from this point of view was only about the lady in question based on personal encounter, but then it is in fact the conscious effort to identify the do's and dont's that we must always observe when it comes to how we relate with people. The deliberate action to avoid the characters that pose as threats towards our chances of maintaining a healthy life. Just like NAPOLEON HILL in one of his books "The Law of Success" made clear one of the negative ways that we unconsciously live a repulsive life, he said "If you must slander someone don't speak it but write it - write it in the sand, near the water's edge!" He is only trying to emphasise on the one fact that cripples who we are and how people see us, and that fact is mostly the words that we have spoken, said or written to people.
It could be in our happiest or darkest moments, for most relationship counsellors always point out the single fact that no matter how sad, bad or even happy we may feel at any moment there has to be a deliberate act to review the words we say when we are most vulnerable.
"We cease to find interest in people when we find their limitations, The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up to a man's limitations, it is all over with him" - "The Law of Success". and it becomes so unfortunate if your achilles heel lies in the words we say to people, for it incapacitates the power of our influence on people far beyond we can possibly imagine. "One of the most destructive evils is slanderous talk. It breaks human hearts and ruins reputations with a ruthlessness unknown in connection with all other evils" - Hill. Physics tells us that the entities in life are the speed of light and the speed of sound, at such the words we speak or the letters we write for others so see with light defines who we are and limits the power of an affable personality in us.
Author; D.E Abraham
Adapted from Napoleon Hill - The Law of Success