How to Win Their Hearts by Being an “Undercover Complimenter”

Next in our agglomeration of joy spreaders is a technique I call

"Accidental Adulation." Once, at a small dinner party, the subject

turned to space travel. The gentleman seated to my right said,

"Leil, you're much too young to remember this, but when Apollo

11 landed on the moon . . ."

If my life depended on it, I couldn't tell you what the chap

said next. I simply remember smiling to myself and stretching to

get a glimpse of my youthful self in the dining-room mirror. Of

course I remember July 1969. Like the rest of the world, I was

glued to the television watching Neil Armstrong's size 9½B boot

hit the moon. However, I certainly was not thinking of moon

travel at that dinner party. I was too busy reveling in the fact that

this lovely man didn't think I was old enough to remember 1969.

I assumed his opinion of my youthfulness just slipped out. Therefore it must be sincere.

Sure! Now that I think about it, he probably knew darn well

I was old enough to remember the moon landing. I bet he was

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How to Win Their

Hearts by Being an

"Undercover

Complimenter"

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using the maneuver Accidental Adulation. But it doesn't matter.

My warm memories of him remain. Accidental Adulation is slipping praise into the secondary part of your point, putting it in verbal parentheses.

Try It. You'll Like It. They'll Love It.

Try Accidental Adulation and see smiles break out on the faces of

the recipients. Tell your sixty-five-year-old uncle, "Anyone as fit

as you would have zipped right up those steps, but boy, was I out

of breath." Tell a colleague: "Because you're so knowledgeable in

contract law, you would have read between the lines, but stupidly,

I signed it."

You run the danger, of course, that you will please the recipient so profoundly with your parenthetical praise, he or she won't

hear your main point.

So far we have explored four covert compliments: Grapevine

Glory, Carrier Pigeon Kudos, Implied Magnificence, and Accidental Adulation. There are times, of course, when blatant praise

does work. The next techniques will hone your skills in this precarious but rewarding venture.

210 How to Talk to Anyone

Technique #54

Accidental Adulation

Become an undercover complimenter. Stealthily sneak

praise into the parenthetical part of your sentence.

Just don't try to quiz anyone later on your main

point. The joyful jolt of your accidental adulation

strikes them temporarily deaf to anything that follows