What a glorious piece of synchronicity. My beautiful friend Kerry Nowensky, who commanded, "Write it down! Now!" My guardian angel Dorothea Helms, who said, "It's time to get yourself a great agent." My amazing agent Sheree Bykofsky, who bombarded me with support and commitment. The charismatic book publisher Peter Workman, who brings all his sense to bear on a book and surrounds himself with the finest talent to be found. And just when you thought you've seen and heard it all, along comes the astonishing Sally Kovalchick, who blows you away with her ability to inhale a manuscript and exhale a finished book.
I offer you all my heartfelt thanks. You are living proof that other people are our greatest resource.
The "secret" of success is not very hard to figure out. The better you are at connecting with other people, the better the quality of your life.
I first discovered the secrets of getting along with people during my career as a fashion and advertising photographer. Whether it was working with a single model for a page in Vogue or 400 people aboard a ship to promote a Norwegian cruise line, it was obvious that for me photography was more about clicking with people than about clicking with a camera. What's more, it didn't matter if the shoot was taking place in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel in San Francisco or a ramshackle hut on the side of a mountain in Africa: the principles for establish- ing rapport were universal.
For as long as I can remember, I have found it easy to get along with people. Could it be a gift? Is there such a thing as a natural talent for getting along with people, or is it something we learn along the way? And if it can be learned, can it be taught? I decided to find out.
I knew from 25 years of shooting still photographs for magazines all over the world that attitude and body language are paramount to creating a strong visual impression—magazine ads have less than two seconds to capture the reader's attention. I was also aware that there was a way of using body language and voice tone to make perfect strangers feel comfortable and cooperative. My third realization was that a few well-chosen words could evoke expression, mood and action in almost any subject. With these insights under my belt, I decided to look a lit- tle deeper.
Why is it easier to get on with some people than with others? Why can I have an interesting conversation with a person I've just met, while someone else might dismiss that same person as boring or threatening? Clearly, something must be happening on a level beyond our conscious awareness, but what is it?
It was at this point in my quest that I came across the early work of Drs. Richard Bandler and John Grinder at UCLA in a subject with the unwieldy name of Neuro- Linguistic Programming, NLP for short. Many of the things I had been doing intuitively as a photographer, these two men and their colleagues had documented and analyzed as "the art and science of personal excel- lence." Among a fountain of new insights, they revealed that everyone has a "favorite sense." Find this sense and you have the key to unlock a person's heart and mind.
As my new path became clearer, I set aside my cam- eras and resolved to focus on how people work on the inside as well as how they look on the outside. Over the next few years, I studied with Dr. Bandler in London and New York and earned a license as a Master Practitioner of NLP. I studied Irresistible Language Patterns in the United States, Canada and England, and delved into everything to do with the brain's part in human connec- tivity. I worked with actors, comedians and drama teach- ers in America and storytellers in Africa to adapt improvisational drills into exercises that enhance con- versational skills.
Since then I have gone on to give seminars and talks all over the world, working with all kinds of groups and individuals from sales teams to teachers, from leaders of organizations who thought they knew it all to children so shy that people thought they were dim-witted. And one thing became very clear: making people like you in 90 seconds or less is a skill that can be taught to anyone in a natural, easy way. Over and over I have been told, "Nick, this is amaz- ing. Why don't you write it down?" Well, I listened, and I have. And here it is.
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