Tim Sanders - The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Lifes Dreams

Contents

Likeable People Bring Out the Best in Others

Likeable People Get Recognized

Likeable People Outperform

Likeable People Overcome Lifes Challenges

Likeable People Enjoy Better Health

POPULARITY CONTESTS

Listen

Believe

Value

How Likeability Makes a Difference

Friendliness

Relevance

Empathy

Realness

Friendliness

1. Observe No Unfriendliness

2. Develop a Friendly Mind-set

3. Communicate Friendliness

Relevance

1. Identify Your Frequent Contact Circle

2. Connect with Others Interests

3. Connect with Others Wants and Needs

Empathy

1. Show an Interest in How Others Feel

2. Experience Others Feelings

3. Respond to Others Feelings

Realness

1. Be True to Yourself

2. Be True to Others

3. Share Your Realness

To my wife, Jacqueline. You are my muse,
my stronghold, and my partner in life.

Authors Note

As part of the research methodology process for this book, I hired Zoomerang/Market Tools, a leading provider of research subjects and technology support, to recruit a wide sample of participants for a likeability survey. These prospective subjects were asked to fill out the survey and told they might also be asked to participate in follow-up e-mails and/or telephone interviews.

We eventually selected and spoke with more than a hundred people, mostly via phone, although several dozen interviews were conducted face-to-face. Each session lasted from thirty minutes to three hours. For this book, interviewees names and some details about them have been changed to protect their privacy.

Stories told to me by attendees at likeability seminars I have given over the last two years in the United States, Italy, and Norway are also included in these pages. I elicited this information by providing seminar attendees with my e-mail address and a request to follow up with questions, comments, or suggestions, to which hundreds did. A number of these seminar attendees stories are found in the book; again, names and details have been altered in the spirit of confidentiality.

Introduction

In the spring of 2002 Don Anthony, known as the don of morning-show radio disc jockeys, asked me to give a speech at an annual boot-camp conference for deejays. The topic: How to Get People to Like You.

Don came up with the idea because, he explained, morning-show personalities arent always likeable people off the air. Their fans may love them, but their coworkers dont. They have a tendency to burn bridges with their sales and production staffs and to fight with their station managers. Such behavior is generally written off as prima-donna star syndrome, but Don thought that for many of these deejays it had the potential to become a huge liability.

The subject interested me so much that I immediately rolled up my sleeves and dug into the assignment. What an interesting audience to address!

As for any new presentation, I planned to do as much research as possible. Don had given me a list of people I could interview, so I picked up the phone and got to work.

One of my first conversations was with a radio personality named Jimbo, with whom the subject of likeability immediately resonated. Our long talk soon shifted from his radio audience to his concern about just one personhis morning-show partner, Michael Diamond.

Michaels real name is Mikey Wills, but when he became a shock jock he selected Michael as his professional on-air name because he figured no one would be afraid of a guy named Mikey. He added the Diamond because it sounded good, and soon enough Michael Diamond was a well-known, on-air schmuck.

He quickly became effective in his new, unlikeable role. He learned how to insult anyone on any topic. He figured out how to push peoples buttons in the meanest way possible. He was willing to say anything to keep the audiences attention. Just as quickly, his show experienced phenomenal ratings and even managed to become syndicated in a handful of major markets.

Not everything went smoothly, however. Despite his becoming successful, no one liked Mikey anymoreexcept his listeners, and after two years even they seemed to be cooling off.

Meanwhile Mikey was having trouble at home. His kids were constantly fighting with him, and his wife, with whom he had entered a nonstop, no-holds-barred battle, was threatening to leave him.

In talking about his friend, Jimbo added, Remember the television program Married... with Children? Well, if you can imagine it, Mikeys like an Al Bundy gone bad.

Nevertheless, Jimbo wanted to help Mikey, because the two had grown up together. From grammar school through high school, Jimbo recalled that Mikey had been one of the most popular people around.

Mikey was the class clown, Jimbo said, but he was also the human crying towelIve never met anybody more sympathetic to his friends, whether it was the guy that lost the championship track meet or the girl who got a C when she expected an A. There was something special about Mikey, and everyone knew it. A special light just seemed to shine right out of his being.

Mikeys popularity continued in college, where he was elected president of his fraternity. But five years into his radio career as Michael Diamond, two things had happened. Hed become very successful, and hed become a thoroughly unpleasant person.

A few weeks later I gave my talk to a hotel conference room jam-packed with morning-show personalities. They were a formidable crowd, sitting with their arms crossed in folding chairs, daring me to distinguish myself from the typical motivational speaker. Half of them looked as though they had spent most of the previous night partying, while the other half glared irritably with the resentment of people whose AA sponsor wouldnt let them go out.

The speech went over well. For the most popular part, I addressed a disturbing trend: increasingly, radio stations were willing to fire their deejays and replace them with a syndicated satellite feed. This feed was cheaper and easier because it meant no staff to worry about.

In contrast to this depressing news, I also mentioned studies showing that the more well liked you are, the more likely you are to keep your job. I could tell from the audience reactionsome gasped, some began talking with their neighbors, some squeaked as they moved uncomfortably in their chairsthat this was the most riveting piece of information I had delivered.

After my speech, I met Jimbo in person. Standing next to him, staring at his shoes like a sinner in church, was his partner, Michael Diamond. Mikey knew what people thought of him, and why. As we talked, he glanced furtively from side to side, as if fearful that one of his colleagues would see him talking to me and yell, Hey, Tim, dont waste your time talking to that jerk.

The scene reminded me of evangelist Jonathan Edwardss landmark 1741 sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Edwards described a lake of fire that roared directly underneath us all, with only a thin and rotting layer of canvas constituting the sole bridge across that lake. That layer of canvas was Gods forbearance, and it was wearing very thin. The congregation members hearing these words were so convinced of their doom that instead of walking to the altar, they crawled cautiously on their hands and knees, their faces as ashen as Mikeys was today.