3 Ways To Boost Your Likability For Easy Networking | Toolbox

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4:06Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you. Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research in the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it, in order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise, and we're going to show you how. I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm.

4:41And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. All right, let's kick off today's Toolbox episode. I have Johnny and Michael joining me today, and we're talking about one of the most fundamental skill sets you need when it comes to building great relationships, and that's likability. In fact, if people don't like you, it's even harder to build relationships with them.

5:18So today we're going to share the three pillars of likability and how you can leverage them for success in person and online. In fact, a lot of our clients are looking to grow their network and expand their social circle. But as we know, that doesn't just happen in real life. That's happening online in any digital space and community you can imagine. So we break down our specific strategies to make you more effective and more likable in both of those contexts. We're also going to share a couple pitfalls you might be falling into when it comes to likability. Now, unfortunately, if we're struggling in the likability area, the strategies you've heard in past episodes on the show are not likely to be very successful.

6:03Meaning, if we don't have a great first impression, and if people don't naturally like us to begin with, it doesn't matter if you memorize a script. It doesn't matter if you focus on high-level strategies. You're going to have a significant decline in the impact of what you're saying or doing if people just don't like you. So how do we become more likable is the goal of today's episode. And I want to start first with a common refrain or excuse that we hear from some of our clients in our coaching programs, which is AJ, Johnny, Michael, you live in big cities, LA, Medellin, Vienna, where there's tons of opportunities to meet and connect with people.

6:41I moved away from a big city. Maybe it was for work, maybe it was due to the pandemic, maybe it was to be closer to your parents. And unfortunately, I don't feel like I have those opportunities nearby. I don't feel like I have that social life that I want or those great opportunities to connect with people where I live, and I don't live in a big city. And we don't want that excuse to keep you from building that high value network, from having that great active social life. So we're going to talk in these three components on how we can do it in person and also online so that we can become more likable.

7:14This is a great topic to be discussing today as I was just on a call with one of our clients yesterday. and he was talking about all of these things that he was going to do once he moved to his new town. And everything was on hold in his life because, well, I'm not there yet. And when I get there, I'm going to get this started and that started and this is going to happen and I'll be dating and I'll be able to look for a new job. And it's just funny to me because we live in this modernity with all of this technology at our fingertips. And certainly we rail against a lot of this technology and how it atrophies a lot of our social skills.

8:02But let's be real here. As a tool, this technology allows us to reach out and connect with people all over the world. And I'm excited to share some of the tactics and concepts that we have used to connect with people. Now, I travel a lot. AJ, I know that you travel a lot. Michael's been all over the world. And my favorite thing to do is to begin reaching out to people where I'm going to be visiting months before I even show, before I get there. And so I'm excited to talk about all of that stuff today. And something to keep in mind here as well is that even if you live in a big city like we do, there might be people that you want in your network that don't live in your city.

8:51And then you still have to reach out to them to get that high value person into your network. And if you don't have the right tools, you just can't get them into your network. And let's be honest, we're all busy on top of it. I was talking with one of our team members, Doug, who has a wife and kids, and he's got a side hustle. And he was saying that right now he doesn't have a lot of opportunity to go out in person and meet new people, but he's on LinkedIn quite a bit. And he sees all these really fascinating people in his feed, but he doesn't work in the same industry and he doesn't have common connections.

9:24So he was asking me how specifically he could be more effective in his cold outreach, meaning reaching out to complete strangers to increase his chances to create those connections online. And as we started talking about these three principles, it was really interesting how they work both in person and online so effectively to increase your likability and of course, increase the chances that people want to build and foster great relationships with you. So let's talk about this first factor in our likability or the first component that science shows makes us more likable naturally. And I know, Johnny, you talk a lot about this in our in-person boot camps, his concept of propinquity.

10:04Yes. Propinquity and familiarity work in the same, but there's a couple other components to propinquity that familiarity doesn't carry with it. But that's the easiest way to think about it. Familiarity. When you see people regularly, nature does its job and you become curious of those people the other thing about propinquity is nearness in ideologies and and interests and likes uh so those commonalities when you are going to regular events or you are operating in certain online communities maybe an online an arts community that specializes in specific art, well, your interests then are going to show because, well, why else are you participating or in that group?

11:04And if you are interested in those topics, those other people who were there, they're interested in those topics. So we already, we have a commonality and that nearness in commonalities go a long way too. And what's great about propinquity and familiarity is that you can leverage it to your advantage. However, there is a window to leveraging it into your advantage, which I like to refer to as being the new guy and the advantage of being the new guy, where as you continue to show up, you are the new person in the group. And that might be an online presence or in real life presence. There is going to be a period of your newness makes people curious about who you are and what you're bringing to the table.

11:57And so, but being seen and being heard allows nature to do its job. And we want to take advantage of that window of opportunity. This is why making sure that you are saying hello to people, introductions, handing out value is very important to that beginning period, that newness period, because that's going to go a long way and people getting to know you and getting more comfortable with you. And the thing about propinquity and familiarity is that nature is going to do its job. But the thing that is most important there is that you don't put any hurdles in nature's way. And removing those hurdles will allow nature to do its job faster.

12:49And I know a lot of people out there are thinking, well, I'm busy. I have work. I don't want to be going to all these events. I don't have time to be doing all this. Well, it doesn't take very much for nature to do its job of you being the new guy and people being curious of what you're about. And to take advantage of that is going to take place very early in that period. Now, if we think back to our first crush or first interest, maybe it's grade school, maybe for some of us it was middle school, odds are it was someone you sat next to, someone you took class with, you saw over and over and over again.

13:30And that's nature doing its work, doing its job, as Johnny was saying. As we see faces that become familiar over time, we naturally gravitate, become more interested, like them more, become attracted to them because they're safe. They're part of our tribe. It's hardwired into our survival to be wary of new people. But if we see the same familiar faces over and over again, we naturally start to warm to them. So using propinquity is actually one of the easiest ways we can start to increase our likability online or in person. And the science is clear on this, right, Michael? Well, the science is really interesting around this, actually, not just clear.

14:14It's actually, I was very surprised when I read about this. There is something that's called the mere exposure effect, which is kind of the base version of propinquity. So Dr. Amy Gordon writes about this in Psychology Today in an article that's titled The Role of Familiarity in Attraction. And she describes the mirror exposure effect or how this has been tested in the lab. When you present participants with random stimuli, this can be a symbol, a shape, a picture, just something. The more people see this, the more they start liking it. And this happens both consciously and subconsciously. So this might even happen with a song that the first time you hear it, you don't really like it that much, but it plays over.

15:03It's the summer hit. It plays over, it plays over, it plays over. And that just lends itself to us suddenly liking it because we're exposed to it so much. Fashion trends, same thing. First time you see this weird pair of pants, you're like, what is that? Hundreds of times you see it, it's like, oh, you know, I like that stuff. And if we take this mere exposure effect and we bring it to the human psyche, to human social interactions, now it's called the propinquity effect. And there's a very famous study, it's the dorm room study, where social psychologists found that the closer students live to each other in a dorm, the more likely they were to become friends.

15:44So in one study, 41 % of people were friends with a person next door, while less than 25 % had a friend who was just a few doors down. And when someone was living at the end of their hall, the likelihood that they were friends was only 10%. Now, one more thing, and then I'll leave the science lab for a bit. One important thing to tag on to what Johnny was saying earlier as well is that this familiarity or this propinquity, it doesn't beat negative experiences. Just because you see your neighbor every single day of the week, if you don't like him, if that's a rude person, propinquity doesn't save you.

16:25That's just going to backfire. And exactly what I was going to share, it's important to recognize that this is happening, but we can enhance or actually be detrimental to its effect. so we can enhance its effect by making eye contact. As Johnny said, acknowledging people, giving value, smiling, having great energy around the people that we're seeing in the elevator, in the hallway, our next door neighbor, our coworker that's the cubicle across from us, or the barista we see every day. But if we're AirPods in, looking at our phone, not acknowledging, not validating the people around us that we're seeing that we are building propinquity with, we're not going to have any of that likability effect that we just talked about.

17:08So it is important to recognize that this is a powerful driving force in nature that we can leverage to become more likable, but we have to be intentional with our actions and our nonverbal signals when we're in these situations with an opportunity to build familiarity. AJ, it brings up an interesting concept. So for our audience, I want you to think about the kind of world that you want to live in. And I was speaking to one of our clients about this, and going out of our way for micro interactions, to say hello, to make sure that people see us smiling, to be at a conscious level that we're present and then making a connection with other people who are in that same conscious presence.

17:52Now, my question to you is, would you like to live in a world where no one says hello to each other? Or would you like to live in a world where everyone says hello to each other? Well, that's a very easy answer for myself because I've lived in places where everyone says hello, and I've lived in large cities where no one speaks to each other. And I can, even here in Medellin, one of the reasons that I love it, and even though I don't speak the language, Colombians are notably very friendly. And when you walk down the street and people say, hola, buenos dias. And it just, it warms my heart. It makes me feel welcome in a place where I'm a stranger in a strange land, but it makes my day.

18:40And one of the things that I do every day in the mornings, I go to the gym and there's a gym in the park and it's a free gym. And I love working out outside every morning and it's under the trees and there's tons of beautiful birds here. And I see the same guys every morning. Now we don't speak the same language. In fact, Medellin is a very international city and there's quite a few people from all over the world in that gym, but pro-pinquity showing itself that we are there every day, every morning, and it's the same guys. But here's another thing. What does going to the gym at 6.30 in the morning in the park every day say about you and your worldview or maybe interests or passion for being for fitness well all of those guys can share it and because they are showing up at the same time every morning there doesn't even need to be much said between us for us to feel comfortable and to feel at ease and have that commonality with each other.

19:51And it blows my mind how we interact at that gym. And I'm doing my best every day to learn the language and to push and force myself into these conversations. But that commonality and that propinquity allows for any faults in my, and how little I speak the language, any mistakes that I make, where everyone just laughs, nods along, gives me a hand, helps me out, and vice versa. And it's wonderful. So one of the pitfalls we see is we don't recognize that this is happening and we live in our own little world, whether that's staring at our device, whether that's listening to our music, whether that's going to the gym and watching our workout intently on our phone.

20:36We don't acknowledge that this is happening. and without acknowledging that this is happening, we're not giving value and validating those around us. So they might actually not see any value in interacting with us. We might have a neutral in terms of likability and impression, or we might even have a negative one of completely disinterested and not social. So just recognizing first off that this is happening around you, how do we enhance it? We add value to people, acknowledging them, validating them, having micro interactions. Another pitfall that we see is avoiding these opportunities entirely, whether that's not going to the barista, but instead ordering delivery, whether that's staying home if your work is now hybrid and there's opportunity to go into the office, but instead you just stay online and you stay on Zoom.

21:23When we avoid these opportunities, we're not increasing our likability and we're hurting our ability to grow our professional and personal network. And one of my coaching clients was sharing with me that he was starting a new role. And in his past role, it was a hybrid environment, but he found himself making a lot of excuses for not going into the office. So it was easier to go to the gym. He had more flexibility in his schedule to just stay home. He said he was more productive at home. But he actually got a performance review that was pretty neutral. And he was pretty frustrated by that because he felt like he had done a lot of hard work.

21:58He felt like he had really made an impact on a key project, but he wasn't getting the great feedback. So in starting this new role, I encouraged him to spend one day a week in that hybrid work environment just going in with the intention of leveraging propinquity, building familiarity with other managing directors, even people he wasn't working with on projects, and investing some time in getting to know them, acknowledging them, validating them, asking them how their weekend was. And this one day a week in a hybrid environment, going into work with that intention. Fast forward six months later, next performance review, and he was highlighted for being a team player.

22:33He increased visibility. People found him to be very warm and a positive influence, and he got on projects that he never would have even heard about because managing directors saw him in that office environment and that propinquity was working for him, increasing his likability. Now we can translate this online too. So this is a trick that I was sharing with Doug around how to leverage this on LinkedIn. Well, number one, what's your headshot? Is your headshot smiling? Do you have warmth? Are you making eye contact with the camera? Or did you just grab any old photo of yourself and throw it on there quickly?

23:08Or even worse, you don't have a photo. Well, if you don't have a photo, it's gonna be very hard to build propinquity. So we wanna have a great headshot on our LinkedIn. Then all we wanna do is we wanna find those thought leaders, find people who are posting and creating content on LinkedIn that's interesting to us, and spend a little bit of time every single day adding value, leaving a comment, leaving a like. Using your face online and those micro-interactions on the platform of LinkedIn starts to create propinquity. I have been creating on LinkedIn over the last six months, and I'm starting to see familiar faces and people liking my stuff.

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27:01minute or two or five to show propinquity with people, to show up, to show up in their stream, to leave a comment, to leave a like, to leave a question, to leave a follow-up. And in that way, expand that network instead of just killing time on the freaking apps. There's another piece to this that I want to bring up that it's important. For a lot of us, we're always looking for the instant feedback loop. And when the instant feedback doesn't come mile away, it's easy to get into our heads and start ruminating and asking ourselves, why am I not getting the feedback or the likes or the responding that I need to know that my efforts are going into a good place?

27:44We hear it all the time. People get so frustrated, they want the big outcome. And what I want to do is present a little bit about how groups work. And this is online and in person where there is a certain group dynamics that you have to have an understanding of. So you're not looking for the wrong things. So in any group, let's say a hundred people, you might find a small percentage, 5 % who are doers. Those people are going to be the ones who are being active, who are reaching out, who are creating, who find their purpose and mission more worthy than anything else. They're going to take action.