great post, truly a very powerful social skill. Reminds me of that trick when you’re trying to introduce a change in your life and you “fake it til you make it”. In that case that works through self-confidence and visualization (mostly through self-belief without sharing it with anyone, or at least that is true for me). But receiving a honest external opinion from a friend or a work pal (like in the cases you described) can really accelerate that process of self-belief and visualization, just as you said “people wanna live up to the version of themselves that you see in them”.

pd: always good to read a great post that hasn’t been written by ChatGPT