The 60-second strategy to become a leader at work and in life

Hi Reader,

I LOVE making recommendations for things to my friends — food, clothes, hot sauce brands, etc.

One thing I notice is people spend so much of their day making decisions that it’s a RELIEF if someone else makes a decision for them. That’s why people tend to LOVE it when you help them make decisions on what to order from new restaurants.

Today, I want to talk to you about being a leader. This is about more than offering to pick the menu for your friends. It's about being liked and admired by the people in your life. It's about being unforgettable. It’s about having great social skills.

Social skills are some of the most important, but overlooked, skills of all.

• With good social skills, you get promoted faster
• With good social skills, you get better relationships — both as a single person and coupled up
• With good social skills, LIFE IS WAY MORE FUN

On the other hand, if you never think about social skills as something you can develop and improve … you’re just like everyone else.

So, let’s talk about the social skills to become a leader.

(Notice: Our minds have lots of invisible scripts about leaders, like “I don’t want to be seen as dominating or bossy or a jerk,” but none of those things are necessarily true at all.)

We can all think of leaders who are very strong, we can also think of leaders who are very loud, we can also think of leaders who are very quiet and lead in their own way.

We can choose what kind of leader we want to be. Leadership starts with behavior. Anyone can think to themselves “I want to be a leader,” but I’m going to talk about a few specific behaviors you can use to start leading today.

(Again, leading is not about being pushy or being the loudest person in the room. Leading is about taking responsibility for offering choices to people and for bringing out the best in yourself and in others.)

How do you become a leader?

The first step is to start getting proactive.

A proactive leader takes 60 seconds before they go to think about what are some of the topics they can talk about today, what’s in the news, what’s trending, what do people in this group want to talk about?

They ask themselves:

• How do I want people to feel?
• Do I want them to feel liked?
• Do I want them to feel entertained?
• Do I want them to feel attracted?

When was the last time you did this?

Have you ever done this?

Most people spend their mornings chewing on a day-old bagel and mindlessly browsing their emails.

What if you took 60 seconds before you jumped into your first Zoom call of the day, summoned an incantation (“What Would Ramit Do Right Now?”), and decided how you want people to feel around you?

Your day would be completely different. You would be taking the first step towards being a leader.

Get proactive. Plan your strategy even for 60 seconds, so that when you go in, you’re not depending on others to entertain you — you’re starting off ready to go by adding value to others first.

This is true for where to eat, what movie to see, what to do this weekend. There are a million examples.

In fact, a lot of times it doesn’t even matter what the decision is, it just matters that someone speaks up and says, “Let’s try this.”

You can see yourself saying this whether you’re a man or a woman, whether you’re 50 or 25. In fact, you can even see yourself saying them to someone who is much more senior than you.

That is the power of being a leader. You don’t have to flex your muscles all the time, but you can simply make suggestions knowing that it's adding value, so other people don’t have to think.

Being a leader is just one aspect of social fluency. I want to show you how to overhaul your social skills completely, including how to get out of awkward situations and how to become unforgettable — all with the exact words to say in each situation.

P.S. Imagine walking into a room or hopping on a call or interview and knowing exactly what to say, leaving people smiling and remembering you. Now imagine being able to apply those same principles to your coworkers … your partner … and everyone around you. Social skills can change your life.