The ones that work everywhere#
- Slow down. Rushing and half-attention quietly cost you presence. Moving deliberately and staying with your own breathing reads as settled, and it pulls you out of the low-grade stress most people are running at by default.
- Dress on purpose. Clothing has signalled something since the pharaohs, and as leadership generally drifts more casual, deliberate choices stand out more, not less. That doesn’t require tailoring — it requires the casual pieces being chosen rather than nearest.
- Still hands when listening. Gesturing while you speak makes you better to listen to. Fidgeting or picking at your nails while someone else speaks reads as nervous or unformed. Hands loosely together, plus a nod and the occasional sound, does the job.
- Be unafraid of no, in both directions. Hearing it often just means you’re asking for enough things. Saying it — to projects and requests you can’t give proper attention — is the half people skip, and it’s the one that protects everything else.
- Compete less. Watching rivals closely stops you doing your own work properly. Picking a space and going deep in it beats tracking whoever else is nearby, and the people who do this tend to stay on good terms with their supposed competitors, which turns out to be worth more than the comparison ever was.
The ones that belong in a specific room#
The poker face. Genuinely useful across a negotiating table, where what you’re feeling about a number is information you’re giving away for free.
Across a dinner table it’s a different act. A face that reveals nothing is not neutral to the person opposite — it’s unreadable, and unreadable is unsettling. People calibrate to you constantly, and if there’s nothing to calibrate to, they get careful. Careful people don’t tell you anything true.
Answering a question with a question. Very effective when someone’s probing and you’d rather not say. Also transparent, and it costs something every time. Do it to a friend and they’ll notice you didn’t answer; do it twice and they’ll stop asking. That’s fine in a deal, where you’ll never need them to volunteer anything. It’s a bad trade with anyone you’ll see next week.
Holding eye contact while the other person is speaking — sometimes called epoxy eyes — is the interesting one, because it’s genuinely powerful and it’s the one most likely to go wrong. Held with warmth, it’s the clearest available signal that you’re actually there. Held as a technique, with the wrong person, it lands as pressure. The difference isn’t the eyes. It’s whether you’re listening or applying something.
A fragrance rotation — two to four, matched to time of day and mood, rather than one signature scent for every context. No downside here. It’s just a nice idea, and it doesn’t belong in the same category as the rest.
The thing worth taking from the whole list#
The best line in it isn’t a technique. It’s that eye contact was a weakness for the first twenty-odd years and became a strength through deliberate practice.
That’s the actual claim underneath all of this — none of it is temperament. Composure, gaze, stillness, pace: all trainable, all boring to train, all more available than people assume.
Just be clear which room each one is for. A tool that gives you an edge over an opponent will quietly cost you a friend, because the friend isn’t an opponent and can tell when they’re being handled.
Worth noting the list is sold as nine and runs to eight unless you count the fragrance rotation, which sits with the assets rather than the habits. Nothing’s missing — the count is just soft.
A few small things to try:
- Put your hands down while the other person is talking.
- Say no to one thing you’d have half-committed to.
- Hold eye contact while listening, once, because you’re interested rather than because you read about it.
- Notice which of your habits are for opponents.
