How To Charm A High Status Person: 5 Tricks From Sean Evans

It's frustratingly common to get completely tongue tied when we're in front of people we'd like to impress, which is doubly unfortunate because it's often those situations that could lead to us landing a great new job, connecting with a mentor, or even dating someone that we're smitten with. And that's why in this video, I want to cover how you can avoid that awkward trap and impress the people you admire by standing out in an incredibly positive way. To do that, we're going to be referencing one of the people who has done this many times, Sean Evans of Hot Ones. So let's start by looking at Sean's greatest skill at asking killer questions.

If you could steal one item out of Casey Neistat's studio, what would you grab? Oh, wow, that's a good question. He's got a lot of stuff in there. He's got drones. Can you give me a band that people make fun of on the Internet that you think deserves a lot more respect? From a songwriting perspective?

That's a great question.

Do you ever think about how much your narrative is shaped by the need to package the details of your life into these instantly accessible anecdotes? I Great question. Sean Evans is the best host on the Internet.

Nailing your questions is especially important when interacting with people of higher status, because chances are they've been asked the same question over and over and over again. Take Saoirse Ronan, for instance, who must be tired of this kind of question by now. What's the worst pronunciation of your name you've ever heard?

What's the worst butchering of it you've ever heard?

What's like the weirdest one you've ever heard? And it's not just celebrities who get repetitive questions. If you've ever come home from college or a vacation to a slew of, well, how was it Questions. You know the feeling. So if you want to impress someone, don't go for the low hanging fruit. A much better strategy is to empathize with the person, to ask yourself what question they probably get all the time, and then to ask a question beyond the obvious one. Here Shawn does it, avoiding obvious direct questions about the Star wars plot and instead asking John Boyega about the security measures that were present to prevent spoiler leaks.

Can you reveal some of the behind the scenes security measures that go into putting a cap on Star Wars? I know, I remember I put an overcoat because every time we leave the set, we can't actually leave in costume.

Now, asking questions beyond the Obvious, of course, becomes easier when you know a bit about the individual. And this is a reason why Sean's crazy prepared research tends to be so well appreciated.

Can you tell the people about the instruments of destruction? Oh, my God. What? Sean, Where'd you even find that info? Dang. Deep cuts.

You're like a really well researched and like, great interview. This is wild.

So are you.

Thanks.

So are you.

So even though you're probably not conducting interviews, you can apply the same principle in your own life. Prior to attending a networking event or an interview, for instance, read up on the person or the company. Get to the point where you don't need to ask how they got their start or what industries they work with or anything that you could find on their about page, for that matter. That way you avoid questions that immediately disqualify you. But avoiding those questions isn't enough. After all, we don't necessarily notice the things that don't happen in interactions as much as we notice the things that do happen. And that's why you want to make sure to take another trick from Sean's playbook, which is the question preamble. Watch here.

And in that 20 years, the TV food scene, it's exploded, you know, from the stand and stir shows to the cooking competition. Boom. To the current obsession with culinary travel. And when you look at that timeline, because You've spent about 20 years in this game now, what do you see is some of the watershed moments, the highlights and the low lights. When you look at that time, you.

Just saw Sean MC someone almost showing off a bit of his knowledge about them, which isn't strictly necessary. After all, of course, the guest is going to know about their own past. But this makes a clear distinction between Sean and interviewers who haven't done their research. And it makes the guests reciprocate his effort in that response.

Do you still dream of having a chicken TV show where you have celebrities do voices for the chickens? And if so, who are the actors at the top of your list? Yeah. How you know about the chicken cartoon you remember about celebrating with Lil Wayne that night. Yeah, I really did your information, huh? I really do your homework in your own life.

Opening with a short preamble is an excellent way to begin a conversation with a recognizable name that you may encounter at a meet and greet, or if you're sending a cold outreach email, just one or two sentences that highlight a specific, perhaps more obscure element of their work immediately separates you from the pack. And I say this from personal experience when I receive emails with Just those one or two sentences that indicate someone has invested in my content. I am much more likely to respond compared to someone who appears to have sent out a mass depersonalized email. So show off what you know a bit. One caveat. Do not fall into the trap of fawning the entire interaction. Just one or two sentences at the beginning is plenty. You want to connect with the individual on a personal level. Which brings us to our next point. Steer conversations towards things that elicit emotion. For instance, someone's passion. Just watch John Boyega's eyes when he's asked about something that he loves.

So first, we feast recently did a deep dive into the connection between anime and hip hop on this new show that we have called Gochi Gang. And I know that you're a huge fan.

This is important because often when we meet someone that we admire, we go with the logistical things that we'd like to know the answer to. How did you start? What would you recommend to someone? At my age, what can I do to get a job working with you? And in addition to being the most common questions that people in a public role may receive, those are also questions that don't engage anyone on an emotional level. Now, you may not know John Boyega loves anime and hip hop, but you can still steer questions towards an emotional response by using the best and worst structure, which is one of Sean's favorites. Just watch.

What was the best thing about living in Iowa? And then what was the worst thing about living in Iowa? Oh, wow. Good question. What do you see as some of the watershed moments? The highlights and the low lights when you look at that time, in asking.

These highlight and lowlight questions, the best and the worst, Shawn gets people to talk about the things that we all find irresistible. First off, it's the things that we love. Those are the things that we can go on forever about. Here Sean is asking Adam Carolla about his love of crows, and he waxes philosophical crows.

I love crows. Can you tell me why you love those squawking birds so much? Describe it to me in as much detail as possible. Okay.

Now, when people are sharing their lowlights, they often won't share the things that make them sad. In fact, those are things that tend to get people to clamp up. But when you ask them more directly about things that frustrate them, well, people will talk your ear off. And it's partially because we're often told not to complain. So when someone gives us the green light, it can feel so good to finally vent about something we find Annoying.

Where are pitch meetings more likely to be parodies of themselves? In Hollywood or in Silicon Valley? That's a great question. I think Silicon Valley, you'll literally get in an elevator and someone's like, I just got to tell you about my company. I just got to tell you about my company. Let me just tell you about my company. I have to tell you about my company.

In either case of things that people love and things that they find frustrating, the guest's enthusiasm for the conversation spikes, and this is something that gets associated with the question asker. If you're using this technique, you so, for instance, say that you get to the end of an interview for your dream job and you're asked, so do you have any questions for me? Much better than asking, well, how do you like working here? Is to adjust the question and ask instead. So tell me, what would you say are the best moments or high highlights of your job? And what would you say the lowlights are? Or maybe the most frustrating things, the emotional charge immediately generates more interest. But of course, impressing people that you admire goes beyond just asking questions, which is why you see Sean demonstrating that he isn't just a replaceable starstruck question asking machine. For instance, he'll playfully tease guests, like here, when he jokes about Rhett and Link's cheesy intros. Here's one for those of you that are unfamiliar who dominoes if Pizza Hut.

Is better, let's talk about that.

And here Sean is teasing them about it.

What we'll do is try to guess the flavor.

Oh, you making fun of us?

If I were making fun of you, maybe I'd say something like, witch cream is the dream. Let's talk about it. But I'm not going to say that.

Similarly, when people poke fun at Shawn, he's comfortable shooting back a zinger. Like here, why am I asking A.

Snowstorm of a male. How dare you? Is it Hindi or Urdu? Like talking to an H and R block. Okay, all whitey then.

On the channel. I've advised against being sarcastic, and I'm not telling you to do that here. But this willingness to be playful highlights one of the most important things that people leave out of their encounters with those they admire. They don't have the willingness to take the risk and have some fun. We can become so afraid of messing up that we wind up being completely vanilla, which of course backfires when we don't stand out at all. So recognize if you have a tendency to be especially literal when you're nervous, and if it's the case, lean towards cracking more jokes when you're around people that you want to impress. A very simple way to do this is by not answering every question that is asked of you in a totally serious manner. Sean demonstrates how to do this here.

That's not normal. No, in fact, this f ing program's not normal. Have you ever killed anybody? We haven't heard from Coolio in a long Seriously.

In the same vein, when we want to impress someone, we sometimes lose our ability to comfortably express disagreement. Even it's about something as simple as whether or not a movie that we both saw is good or bad. Now, this is one that we don't get much chance to see in the Hot Ones format. But there is another famous host who does this very well, and that is Joe Rogan. You can dive into the entire breakdown we did on him, linked in the description, but here's just one example of how to disagree with someone in a way that is assertive while still remaining polite. And it's by highlighting where you still agree prior to disagreeing.

You beat Gonzaga. It was a good fight. Yeah, you're a very good fighter. That's not what the issue is. The issue is, can you become a champion? If you can't become a champion, are you comfortable with getting knocked out three or four more times?

You could see more details on Joe Rogan in the video on him, but the point for this video, whenever it comes to people that you want to impress, is to just make sure that you aren't stifling your own thoughts and opinions in an attempt to come off as agreeable. And that really takes us to the mindset that makes all of this much easier to incorporate and act upon. When it comes to those people that you want to impress, you need to see past what they may represent to you, to the human beneath. You see, it's very easy to see people as icons. You may focus on how they can help you to get promoted, or the book that they wrote, or how impressive their following must be. And when you do that, it makes you feel completely separate, different, and maybe even beneath them. But when you see them as human, you recognize that they probably have a life a lot like yours outside of their public Persona. They might like to goof off with their friends, brag about their kids, argue about sports, or nerd out about their favorite fantasy series. And when you look for those aspects, you get curious about exactly the things that they want to connect over. But everyone else just breezes past and you realize that you're not so different which helps diminish the gulf that you may unconsciously place between you asking about their personal interests or cracking a joke or even having a spirited disagreement. Come much more naturally when you see people not just as the role, but as a human. If you feel like your social confidence can be inconsistent or just not there in the moments where you most need it. Like with superiors, our Charisma University program comes with a 30 day action guide that gives you a step by step path to unshakeable confidence in that situation. And many, many. You can read all about the program with the link below, but the strongest way, I believe, is to let you know what members have said about the course themselves. So here are just a few things that CU members have written in the first is from someone who used CU in an interview and she says, I love the way that you lay out the charisma styles. It was awesome to see which one fit my personality. Of the five I found the authenticity style really resonated with me. I was super honest and authentic during the interview for my current job I was interviewing my boss as much as she was interviewing me. I got the job and my boss still mentions my interview and my honesty to this day. Another member wrote in I was really bad at expressing myself in situations that weren't one on one. In conversation I'd find myself hesitant to speak or I'd get caught in my own head overthinking things. After cu, I am now way more confident in saying what I think or how I feel. Even in bigger group settings I feel way more happy all the time. I was even able to talk to a woman I've had a crush on for over a year and make a good first impression. Overall, I love this course and I keep coming back to it when I need a refresher on the Daily Action modules. And lastly, one member writes thank you so much for this program. After going through Charisma University, I've made more friends, have higher self esteem and can more easily talk to people I don't know. I've solidified my values and I know who I am now. Now you can see more success stories like those in the comments if you decide to join the course and if you do, it comes with a 60 day money back guarantee 100% for any reason at all. And that's 60 days even though the course only takes 30 to complete just to make sure that every single member truly feels that they are getting a ton of value from the course. So if you want to check out the course, go ahead, click the link on screen now or below in the description to do so. We've had thousands of members go through this course and get a ton out of it, and I'd love for you to do the same, especially given that the New Year is right around the corner and this can be a fantastic resolution. Either way, I hope that you've enjoyed this video and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.