141: How to be a Super-Likable Person That Everyone Will Want to Talk To

You know, growing up in Minnesota, I mean, geez, oh, geez, everyone is so, so nice. Would you like to learn how to be Minnesota nice? Welcome to the Confident Communications Podcast. Helping communicators find the right response at the right time and deliver it in the right place. Who doesn't want to be light? But in order to do that, you need to be a likable person. And as I said earlier, growing up in Minnesota, oh, geez, you know, everyone was so nice to your face. That's what people from Minnesota know. But the problem for many people, when you are nervous, when you're tired, when you're cranky, when you're grumpy, when you're stressed, when you're from Boston, you can be not so likable at times. It can be uncomfortable situations that might put you into a default of not being so likable. But I believe that people who are liked tend to have an easier time leading as well as getting along with people. But also when they are the face of a brand or an organization, things tend to tip in their favor when things go not so well. So think about people who hit a crisis road bump. You'll find the prickly behavior behind the problem, usually. But nice people, they usually do a lot better in a crisis over the tyrants or the harassers. You know, you get the idea. So on today's podcast, 10 Ways, Easy Ways to become a more likable person instantly. Easy enough to remember the next time you see someone. It's perfect for July. No one wants to think heavy in July, so that's why we have this easy peasy podcast. Okay, so here we go. 10 ways to become, you know, just a super, super likable person. All right, number one, smile. You're on Candid Camera. Only people of a certain age know what that means. But smiling, of course, every time you smile, people notice that. And when you smile, when you genuinely smile, like when you lift up your eyes and it's a genuine smile, it triggers a reaction. Other people feel comfortable around you. So even if you have to force it, if you smile, you're sending the signal that you're a likable person. Two, make eye contact with the person you're speaking to. You don't need to, like, glare into their eyes. You don't need to, like, super focus into their eyes, but always look up. Don't always have your eye someplace else, like a phone. Look them directly in the eye. Number three, use their name in a conversation. I do this, and I do this a lot not to be super likable. I do it so I can remember names. The only way that I can remember names. And I don't think I'm a particularly forgetful person. But when it comes to names, if someone tells me a name, it is one ear and it goes right through the other one. I don't know what it is, but I, I have to, I have to anchor it to something else. So someone may look at like someone. So I'll immediately tack it along to maybe a person that they look like. But the, the hack that I use is as soon as they tell me their name, I say it right back to them and then I say it over and over. But when you do that, when you say someone's name, it's friendly. So think about it the next time someone mentions your name. How you feel about it makes it personal. So the next time you're in a conversation, just force yourself to say the person's name. All right, number four. Be genuinely interested in what they have to say. Be genuinely interested in what they have to say. What does genuine mean? Well, look them in the eye, react to what they're saying. Ask them questions about what they're saying. Ask them questions about themselves. Be, be interested in other people's lives. Ask them about their interests, their hobbies, their work. You can share your own stories as well. There's nothing wrong with that. But what makes you likable is if you're inquiring more about them and you're not inserting yourself into that story. All right, next five. Keep your hands open when you talk so that people know you're being welcome. So in other words, it's a nonverbal move. They're not stuffed in a pocket, they're not fiddling on a phone. Of course, I know there's boundaries with what you can do with your hands, but you can gesture with your hands. You can tell someone to come over when someone makes a point. You can gesture their point that you're listening to their point. Use the non verbals in a friendly way to let people know that you are engaging with them. Number six, and it's my favorite. This is like my, my drug in life is laughing. It's those endorphins. It's the best drug out there. Laugh often. Laugh like you mean it. Laugh to have fun. Laugh where you guffaw. Laugh even if you're laughing at yourself. I mean really, is there anything better than laughing with a friend or laughing with your kids or laughing with someone that you love? There's Nothing better than that. So number six, you laugh, you'll be likable. Number seven, give compliments and again, make them genuine. Don't say, oh, you look like you've lost weight, or oh, why you so dressed up? Those aren't, those are backhanded compliments. Genuine compliments are commenting on what someone did with their work. If they had a presentation, if they gave a speech, if they did something where you know someone is looking for feedback or feedback is going to make them feel better about an uneasy situation. If you give someone a genuine compliment, you are going to remember it. As a complete aside here, I spoke to high school students this past week. Totally new genre for me. For a while, I used to teach. I was an adjunct in college and I would speak to teenagers all the time, and I have teenagers. But I'm so wired to speak to leaders, to communicators, to adults and people who are professionals. I had to really change my game when I was speaking to teenagers. So I was a little stressed because I thought, oh my gosh, just going to look like their mother, like, lecturing them. So I have to be on my game. But one of the students wrote me the nicest email about the talk that I gave. It was about reputation management and using social media and, you know, the risks and the benefits of using social media when you're Gen Z. But this email, oh, my goodness, it was so nice. And it wasn't her saying, oh my gosh, your talk was so good. I just loved it. It wasn't all these kind of, you know, the pablum comments where she could have been talking about anything. I mean, my only criticism is she said you were one of the best speakers. I mean, it would have been great if she said you were the best speaker. I'm kidding, of course. Or am I? But she was so genuine. Actually, that was the nicest thing to say, to not say you were the best speaker, but one of the best speakers. But she specifically went through and remembered things that I was telling her. Now, maybe she's one of those hardo teenagers that knows like, oh, if I do this, this might look good and I might get a scholarship. I mean, maybe even if that was the case, it doesn't matter. She took the time to write me and she took the time to write me in a way where she very specifically laid out the compliment. I will never forget this girl. If this girl, if I ever come into this girl's orbit, if she comes into my orbit again, I'm going to remember her. So if Anyone ever comes to me and says, hey, she's applying for a scholarship, or, hey, she's applying for this job. What do you think? Please, she'll have the job in no time. All right, next. Number eight. Listen carefully. A little bit different than what I mentioned earlier. It's the careful listen. Carefully listening to someone means when they're talking. You look at them, but you don't interrupt them. You don't finish their sentences for them. You don't insert yourself. You just listen. Picture this. You're talking to someone. Do you ever feel that stress? Like when you're telling a story or telling an anecdote, whatever it is, you're kind of rushing through it because you know this person's gonna interrupt. But imagine speaking to someone, looking at them, and they're sitting back and looking in a way where you know they're not gonna interrupt with you. There's going to be a calmness that comes over you where you're gonna be allowed the space, you know, the padding, to share what you want to share, to even include the pauses that your story may need without having that person jump in. That makes you an incredibly likable person, because people don't like to compete for their own story, especially if they have to get to a point in the story and they can't get there because someone keeps interrupting them. Be the person that lets a person finish. You will be liked. All right, number nine. Tell people how much you appreciate them. This matters. And sometimes we get so caught up in our own work that we forget to do that. I'm guilty of it myself. A few weeks ago, I'm sure you've listened. I launched the Indestructible PR Masterclass. It was a lot of work. Oh, my gosh. The back end work on it was tremendous. And I had a team of people work with me on that, and they were all wonderful. Someone had given me tremendous feedback on it. And as soon as they. As I read it, I thought, oh, wow, this is great. I'm so happy that they loved it. I had to do a pause and think, wait a minute, I should be sharing this, because this isn't just my success, it's my team's success as well. So I sent everyone a message and I mentioned them. I mentioned the feedback, and I said, this isn't just for me. It's for all of us. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And one of the people on my team wrote back or spoke back. It's. We have a, like, voxer where we Message each other. And she was so appreciative that I took the time to say that. So the lesson for me was, oh, Molly, you need to do this more in your work because it definitely makes a difference. All right, number 10, this is kind of an unusual one for being likable, but I think it speaks to the time that we're in and it also speaks, I don't know, to complicated relationships, complicated scenarios in our lives. Number 10 is the idea of being balanced. There are people who are going to be moody, short tempered. They're going to be, you know, the doom and glooms, the Debbie Downers. Those are the people who are known for their unpredictable or fluctuating moods. You never know what you're going to get with this person. And in a way, you almost have to brace yourself when you're with them. And when you feel that way towards someone, you're never going to attribute them as a likable person. Definitely not an extremely likable person. They're going to be a complicated person. There may be parts about them that you like, but I call these people people where there's a price to admission, there's a price of admission. You're spending time with them, but you gotta pay for it in some way. The people who come at you balanced. So in other words, you know that you can rely on them for a smile, for a good mood, for they're going to be up, they're going to be on, they're just going to share positivity every time that they're with you. And even if they are having a challenging day or they're in a funk, if you will, they're going to explain it in a way that it's going. They're going to describe, it's going to be in context why they're feeling that way and it's going to be fine. Because the act of explaining why they are in a funk is a very balanced act. So the more balanced you are as a person, it makes you, yes, more likable. But the word I'm going for here is safe. It makes you a safe person. And we like safe people. Safe people are likable people. So that's the top 10 list. It's an easy list. It's one that you can easily remember and one that you can deploy right away. So here's your indestructible PR tip. If you are a likable person, you have likely built up plenty of goodwill that will come in handy when you need it. Crummy people tend not to fare well in a crisis. All right. Thanks for listening to the podcast this week. I really like it when people share their feedback with me, but also your questions. Anything that you want me to talk about? I have now a section on the website. Go to mollymcpherson.com podcast, scroll all the way to the bottom, and I have an online voice recorder. Leave me your feedback, leave me your questions, leave me your guest suggestions. I want to hear from you. And if you leave a question, let me know if we can play it on the podcast. All right, everyone, that's all for this week. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you here next week. Bye for now.