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
209
How to Win Their
Hearts by Being an
"Undercover
Complimenter"
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Copyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.
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