Chapter 8 – Making Yourself A Target

Chapter 8 | Making Yourself A Target

To get the most of people and situations you have to understand personalities and situations and to some degree be a chameleon with your own personality traits. But one of the few traits that will serve you well in the overwhelming majority of situations is the ability to make yourself a target. If you can do this then you will inevitably be able to make the majority of people in any room with you comfortable and/or willing to work with you. It takes a couple of things to be able to pull this off. You have to let go of your own insecurities and be willing to be vocal. If you can do those two things, then you can become everyone else’s target, and by doing so become the person people are most willing to work with.

So what do you need to become comfortable with before you try and make yourself a target? You need to be able to be picked on in any given day on any given topic and not be visibly offended. Ideally, you need to be able to not be offended really at all, but visibly is the biggest key. You may have had more dental work in your life than you care to admit, but if someone says your smile is crooked you need to be able to add a joke on top of it instead of shying away from it. As you earn the respect of the group, over time you’ll share with them more about yourself and they’ll shy away from certain topics out of respect for you. In the initial stages you need to be wearing a Teflon suit that not only helps you not be insulted but empowers you to add to any insult/comment that comes your way. If you own your insecurities to the point of piling onto them when others attack them, then 2 things happen.

The people who truly are ill-intentioned with their comments won’t ever be able to figure out what really does hurt you.
You’ll be open enough with the people you like that they will pick up on the couple of things they should avoid and out of respect they will avoid them and not share them with the Jackwagons that are hoping to offend you.

I’ve had more dental work than some small countries’ inhabitants have had combined, swim as effectively as a cinder block, and to say that I have dance moves like a rhythmless white guy is to insult all rhythmless white guys across the country. What are all these statements? Completely true. And in no way offensive to me. Because I own them. And what sits behind them is an arsenal of skills and talents that I welcome others to try and poke holes in. I’ve already knocked myself for my shortcomings. Good luck attacking my strengths in an attempt to pile on. And if a person that loves to needle others’ inequities shows up, I’ve left them with nothing to attack that I can’t do a better job of attacking. And I can crush them for whatever they are less adequate in than I am if it becomes apparent they desire to pick on others. I never aim to bring others down. But in this approach you can make all the people in the room that don’t like to put themselves out there comfortable. You can make the people that are comfortable with themselves laugh, and you can make the complete assholes that want to pick on others for no apparent reason show up. And depending on how annoying they are, you can set them up to be crushed in front of the whole group, which they likely deserve. But you always give them a few attacks to make sure they are true A-Type Assclowns before you put the final nails in their coffin.

So, in summary, the benefits of being the Target, AKA “How to SLAM it”:

Summoning the Silent
- Drawing out the quieter folks that are often times very intellectual people.
- And they’ll be most easily leveraged by people that make them comfortable.
Leading the Legions
- People want a few things from a leader: intelligence, an approachable personality, and consistency. No one knows you’re intelligent if you don’t speak; they don’t know you have a personality if you don’t share fun stories, and a great way to be consistent is to help everyone kick ass every time ass needs kicking.
- Leaders don’t announce they are going to be the leader. They do everything they can to help the group achieve their goal and they emerge as leaders.
Assaulting the A-Type Ass Clowns
- You take a few willingly on the chin before you turn on them. But if they want to keep poking at the defenseless of the group…you have choices on how to handle it.
  - Knowledge is power. They can rail on person X for explaining they play video games every Thursday as part of a “clan”….But a few pointed questions to them where they have little response for how to resolve an issue during a meeting and in front of the group will shut their pie-holes up in a hurry.
  - Keep in mind, not all “A-Type’s” are jerks. Just because people are outgoing doesn’t make them jerks. I’m referring very specifically to the people you meet that aren’t outgoing to be outgoing . They are attacking others in an attempt to feel superior. You know, the freaking Jackwagons of the world.
Mesmerizing the Majority
- Most people enjoy someone with a visible personality. This type of person gives them something to chew on that isn’t a 7-page dissertation as to why we need to click one more button every day.