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I was with my friend helping with his shifting to new house. The landowner seemed to be well educated, well mannered gentleman. He started talking about his daughters, their achievements and much more. Nowhere did it look like boosting about himself but somewhere I felt “Why isn’t my friend talking about his achievements?” He had a fantastic educational background, job and much more.

What do you do when someone is bragging? 

Generally, when someone starts talking about his achievements, as a normal reaction we tend to say ours. Let us consider this: When we want to impress someone we want them to know the best of us- our good traits, our interests, our hobbies and definitely our achievements. The question is how you impress the man without him feeling that you are desperately trying to impress him. When you talk about hobbies and interests it isn’t difficult as you are not much criticized but when you have to say about the best things (achievements you can say) it becomes tough. I am not talking about boosting the self, it’s about letting the other person know you are something (it was a matter of taking a house for rent and you had to impress the man)

I was wondering why my friend was not bragging about himself as a response, esp when he had so much to talk about! 

As we talked more the topics ranged from education, jobs, politics, Indian other cities, temperature and there we were guessing the temperature in Chennai. The man started saying how difficult was it for him to adjust the weather there and my friend said “Oh yea, I was there a couple of times as a guest faculty in IIT. It’s difficult to adjust being used to the weather here. How many years were you there?” I looked at him, he gave an impish smile, I immediately turned towards the man, and he looked a lot impressed than he was before. I was surprised to know how well my friend brought the fact of his achievement casually.

And there is the reason why! 

At the beginning of the conversation I was wondering why didn’t my friend talk about all the things he did but when we ended the talk I realized. He did exactly what he intended to do, impress the Man! I have met few people who constantly brag about themselves irrelevantly. I always felt “Why are they so desperate to tell?” I am sure many of us have felt this.

I realized today how effectively you can present yourself. Sometimes in the urge to impress someone we tend to talk a lot about ourselves never realizing how desperate we may seem to them. If we have to tell someone about our best things why not tell in a clever way? It’s the simple communication skills which make a lot of difference.

Related:

You can find a way to say NO to someone doing something wrong! 

Let others be right most of the time

How to tell someone they are wrong without hurting them?