Tom Vizzini

So there I was sitting in a bar..... Again.

That was in the Mexican bar on the back streets of Puerto Vallarta. This
place was beyond the most dingy bar you could possibly imagine. It was 12
a.m. and there I sat. I began to wonder how I ended up here.

It all began five days earlier. We were in Mexico teaching a seminar and
setting up our scuba diving schedule. We were wandering around town looking
for Chico's dive shop. While we were there we were looking for a specific
type of tequila that is only available in Mexico. So I can do it looks like
a pretty good tequila store. They begin giving us samples. This was a really
good tequila. Of course the one I liked best cost $90 per bottle.

Then the guy was talking to made the fatal sales error that gets me to leave
any store in Mexico. "I can give you this bottle for free if you would
attend a presentation". Oh my God another timeshare sales salesman.

They're like fleas. We were in a grocery store looking around and someone
came up and started talking to us. It was a timeshare salesman. Every day
when I left my hotel to go to breakfast on the side of the road, make that
both sides of the road, there were timeshare salesman waiting to pounce upon
us. They offered as everything from free rental cars to $300 in cash and we
were willing to take only an hour and a half of our time, in timeshare time
that's about four hours, to listen to their presentation.

It is one of the main reasons that I swore I would never go back to Mexico.

So after giving the nice to tequila/timeshare salesman the wrong hotel, the
wrong room number and the wrong name, we got him to tell us where Chico's
dive shop was. Oh yes he also offered us a free diving trip.

We walk into Chico's in begin talking to the owner. By the time we were done
we had gotten them to somehow give us a package deal for three dives that
included Kim's open water dive or certification and my advanced rescue dive
or certification for the same price as the regular dives. Not a bad
beginning.

Rapport is an incredibly powerful tool. It should never be underestimated.

In most of the books that I have read on persuasion I usually find only
three pages are so dedicated to the process of getting Rapport. Most of the
time it is about matching and mirroring. This is absolutely wrong in our
opinion. Matching and mirroring are the result of already having Rapport.

When people are in Rapport they tend to naturally mimic each other even to
the point of their heart rates beginning to synchronize.

A master of rapport is able to fit in to almost any situation, lifestyle or
culture effortlessly. They move at the speed of the culture. They do so not
on purpose but because they can actually feel the tempo of that culture.

When we are in New York people think we live in New York. When we are in
Hawaii people think we live in Hawaii. When I talk to people from the South,
where I live, they think that I have lived here my whole life.

Rapport is about being a chameleon. Not because you are trying to because a
chameleon is what you are.

After three days of playing around with the dive master's do is finally the
end of our last dive. One of the dive master's, Victor, turns and asked if
you would like to go someplace local to eat. We finished filling out our
forms and with our instructor, Raul, began heading up the back roads of
Puerto Vallarta. We found ourselves in a local restaurant that we would have
never found. It looked more like somebody's basement than an actual
restaurant but the food was incredible. Then a new good friends the dive
master's began buying us beer. That was about seven hours ago.

Since then we learned that Victor and several girlfriends one of which was
American. He told us not to stay in a hotel next time we come because his
girlfriend just remodeled her house and has a second-floor that she can rent
to us very cheaply. Victor is the one who kept ordering the beers.

Nacho, yes that's what they call him, came from a small town named Chimo and
slept on a dirt floor for the first 15 years of his life. He missed it.

His parents to live in Chimo and he goes there is much as he can. He's about
to have a baby in two weeks and was carrying a gun because he had some
trouble. He invited us to his birthay on February 17th. It is supposed to be
a huge party. He even invited us to stay at his house.

Skippy, not a very Mexican name I know, has lived all over the United States
and was the best one is speaking English. Several years ago he saw his
mother stabbed to death and was stabbed over 40 times himself by someone
that is stepbrother had hired to kill them. He had a belief that if he did
not have very much money that he would be safe. He also isolated himself
from just about everyone. He did seem to follow Kim and I around a lot. I
think it was the first time that he had connected with people in a long
time. Yes I did do some sneaky stuff to help him

The restaurant closed two hours after it normally would since we were having
such a great time. Then I found myself riding in the back of an old beat up
Datsun pickup truck heading into the hills of Puerto Vallarta. I had to
laugh as we drove by the tourists. A truckload of Mexicans with a little
blond girl in the front seat must of looked a bit odd. The tourists looked
at me as if I was a local and it was interesting to see their reactions from
the other side.

Up one backstreet and then another we finally parked. We locked our dive
gear on the inside of the truck and headed around the corner to someplace
that looked like just a doorway. In through the doorway into an area that
had some beat up old tables, plastic lawn chairs and a bar in the corner.

Then they bought us more beer. We talked for hours as if we were old
friends. Kim says the woman's toilet had a sign that said that any one
caught dealing drugs are doing drugs and establishment would be turned into
the police.

Yet we were perfectly comfortable.

That was around four hours ago, maybe three. When Kim and I travel and we
don't want to stay in the hotel areas where you don't get to see the people.

These are some pretty interesting people. One pregnant waitress in the
miniskirt. One waitress that was always yelling at Victor. We found out that
was one of his girlfriends. An assortment of people who walked in and out
and one guy passed out at the bar. We talked and laughed and it is now

12 a.m..

The reason I tell you this is that I don't really drink beer. I don't really
like beer. Yet here I am about 10 beers later having a great time.

My only concern was whether or not these guys were going to let us leave.

Each time we tried the just bought another round of beer to keep us there.

Finally we convinced them that we had to go because we had to fly the next
day. Being hung over on a plane did not sound like a good plan. They didn't
care. They would have preferred that we stayed until 2 a.m. if we could. So
big handshakes and a big hugs and Victor walked us out to his truck. I
walked out to the truck and stood there will Victor made sure he got a cab
to follow us so we wouldn't have to carry our dive gear around while looking
for one.

Both Kim and I agreed that it was a good night. We actually wished we were
staying longer.

If you're going to use the Magical Rapport skills be prepared. They have a
habit of making total strangers view you as lifelong friends. As my friend
Paul says that teaches the Interview Magic, "you know you had good Rapport
when they follow you to the car"

So why do I say that the Rapport went too well. Well my plan was to go back
to the hotel have nice dinner watch the sun set and get up the next day and
relax by the pool for two or three hours before our flight. Needless to say
we did not wake up in time. I did not get to enjoy those last few hours of
90° sunshine before returning to a 40° Atlanta. I think it was a good trade.

These skills are powerful and lots of fun. They can lead to all types of new
adventures and experiences. The all you want is the same old thing in your
life than stay away from the Magical Rapport stuff. You just might end up
with a free place to stay in the bunch and new friends in a beautiful
tropical location.

Have fun

Tom



Tom Vizzini

Real Skills for the Real World

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