Seth - How To Be Popular

UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia
New Zealand | India | South Africa

Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

Copyright Suhel Seth 2011

The moral right of the author has been asserted

This digital edition published in 2017.

e-ISBN: 978-9-386-81504-0

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

RULE 1

Self-development Rule

(be interested and interesting)

WHAT THIS RULE
WILL TEACH YOU

Enrich your mind

Understand the difference
between being intelligent and
being interestingand why
the latter will ultimately get
you further

Appreciate the importance of
being multidimensional

Okay, heres the deal. You cant be socially successful if youre not interested in thingsnot unless youre as gorgeous as Bollywood beauty Aishwarya Rai or as wealthy as entrepreneur Analjit Singh, in which case your money and good looks can do an Open sesame! into the world of social success for you. For the rest of us ordinary mortals, being uni-dimensional is an issue. Frankly, it can often be an issue even if you are beautiful and rich.

The self-development rule is number one because it is the most important. Be interested in everything, or in as many things as you can manage. And the easiest way to learn interesting things is by reading as widely as you can. In the last six months, I have read everything I could get my hands on, from Marie Claires cover story on Deepika Padukone to whether the Middle East can build stable democracies in the Economist. In my library at home, youll find F. Scott Fitzgeralds great classic, The Great Gatsby, Tina Browns gossipy account of Princess Diana, The Diana Chronicles, and Ramachandra Guhas masterly history of modern India, India After Gandhi. As a result, I can banter about Deepikas new hairstyle with my clients daughters and argue about world politics at a think tank dinner. Trust me when I say both hold me in good stead.

The reason I read is because it helps me talk. Simple. The more I know, the more I can engage people in conversation. In fact, a lot of what I do involves talking. I speak at conferences, I talk to CEOs, make presentations, and address management teams and students alike. For most of you too, talking is likely to be a key part of your work and play. You may not do much public speaking but youll find that the more widely you read, the easier it is to hold conversations, even at a casual, intimate level. Talking helps create a brand value for oneself. I am able to articulate things that would otherwise escape others. I am also able to deliver one-liners in a manner that they will be remembered. My involvement with college theatre and debating as a young man has helped me a great deal in being able to express my thoughts and opinions but its reading that has given me the substance.

I have always said that public speaking as an art form can take you places, and it almost always does. President Barack Obama is not as famous today for his health care reforms, as he is for his speeches.

To this day, the bestselling book at the venerable bookstore Hatchards, in London, is a collection of the speeches of Britains former Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Here at home, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehrus tryst with destiny speech still brings tears to peoples eyes. These men used speaking to connect emotionally and intellectually with people and communicate something of themselves.

Remember, whether its you, me, Gandhi or Obama, ultimately, we are all brands. Human brands perhaps, but brands nonetheless. This means that each of us has qualities (and disadvantages) that are uniquely ours. Thats what people buy into most of the time. You dont get invited out because the person extending the invitation liked your clothes. They may have eyes for your money but that appeal wears off after a time. After all, when was the last time you wanted to sit down for dinner with the freshly minted paan masala owner? Or for that matter the shady electronics trader or your local bootlegger? Its not the absence of wealth that makes them unappealing but the fact that they dont make much of an impression in most circles. You make an impression when youve created a brand for yourself and the best way to create this brand is with words.

Knowledge is the social fodder that feeds todays information-driven world. You have to read and you have to be able to talk. Thats why you need to make books your best friends. They will help you get very far and theyre the only friends that will last both social and economic downturns. You may decide to drop an industrialist from your friends circle or simply forget him because hes suddenly become poor or irrelevant but authors and poets will always be welcome. Knowledge is recession-proof and has universal appeal. Women are as impressed by a well-read individual as men are. A little-acknowledged fact is that ultimately, women love men with brains. This is why Marilyn Monroe married Arthur Miller, the playwright and not some Sports Illustrated model with ugly biceps or some millionaire.

The man who taught me this simple (yet profound) truth was my first boss Ram Ray.

Ram, for those of you who dont know, is a legend in Indian advertising. He is the founder and CEO of the ad agency Response, and before that, he had an illustrious career with J. Walter Thompson, one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. When I joined Response in 1986, it was known for its seminal campaigns for brands like Jenson and Nicholson (although it wasnt responsible for creating that great tagline, Whenever you think of colour, think of us. That was by Arun Nehru, the paint companys former CEO) and Boroline. Boroline became the quintessential Bengali ad. It essentially said that in every Bengalis life, there had to be a chakar (servant), kukur (pet), pukur (pond), and Boroline. Response was also the agency that launched the soap Aramusk. We were the first agency to brand a soap not on cleanliness, but on sex appeal. Lust versus lather.

As for Ram, well, he seemed to us to be more like a rotund professor at a suburban college in midwest America than an advertising agency boss in central Kolkata. He is a portly, bespectacled man with a bearing that may remind you of waddling ducks. He is also a man with many passions. He loves Kolkata, literature, cinema, photography, typography, art, crafts, food and the Internet. He was probably the second person to get himself an Apple computer after Steve Jobs. Hes also someone who wont have his Bloody Mary without a celery stick in it and will make sure the glass is properly rimmed with salt. Now of course in Delhi, they use Swarovski sticks.