If you’re wondering how to be a likeable person or how to become more likeable in general, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, you’ll learn some insights from Robert Greene on the subject of likeability.
Psychologists call it a theory of mind a child at a very early age, two years old, even younger sometimes has the unique ability among animals of imagining what the other person is thinking and we take that for granted because we use it all the time.
But no other animal that we know except perhaps dolphins and chimpanzees to some degree have that ability. It’s incredibly powerful the ability to put yourself in the shoes, the body, the head of another person.
What happens when you grow up?
Now children as they get older feel social pressure to kind of fit into a group and they become more self-absorbed as we all do as we get older and less outer-directed.
So when you’re two or three years old you’re very attuned to your mother your father and their emotions and their moods but then as you get older you become less observant, you become more self-absorbed.
Hence you need to turn that around and you need to understand that social skill is a matter of sensitivity to the psychologies, to the moods, to the experiences of other people and you’re not paying attention. You need to be aware of that be more likeable.
You need to aware of this if you want to be more likeable
Okay, you need to be aware of this most of the time when you look at your spouse, when you look at your children or your boss, you’re projecting your own emotions, your own phobias, your own childhood problems onto them. You’re seeing reflections of your own emotional hang-ups.
So you’re not really looking at people, you’re not really observing them, you don’t really understand their experience and what makes them different.
While they’re talking and blabbing on about their problems and their day, we’re in our head and we’re thinking about our own problems, our own issues, our own ideas that we want to tell them because we find that more interesting than what they have to say.
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The reason we don’t listen to other people
The reason we don’t listen to other people is we find ourselves more interesting than what the other person has to say.
You’re never going to become a good listener if you’re trapped in that kind of paradigm. You need to flip it around and start thinking, that other people are actually fascinating.
So for instance you’ve been married to this woman or man for 10 years, tell yourself that you don’t really know them. Begin with that premise. Your goal is to find out something new that you never understood or saw in them before.
To start paying attention to their non-verbal communication, it’s the fine level of your attention, how you’re attuned to the look in their eye, to the tone in their voice, to when they get excited by certain subjects.
Get them to talk about their childhood. Everybody loves to talk about their childhood and about special moments that happen and notice any kind of excitement in the eyes or something that makes them very emotional either good or bad and start paying attention to these things that you never noticed before.
If you can just do that once a day with whoever it is you’ll start to see that it’s actually very powerful. You’ll have less drama, you’ll have less arguments, you’ll have less conflict in life.
Simple Visualization Exercise to be more likeable
I want to piggyback on what Robert Greene is saying and give you an additional tip: a visualization exercise that will help you listen better and also help you to be more likeable.
I want you to imagine that there is a person watching a movie. Now, most of the time your consciousness is this person and it is focused on your movie.
When interacting with others you are essentially being invited into their movie theater to watch their movie, but what most of us do is bring our phones in with us pull them out underneath the seat, and secretly watch our movie at the same time.
You might think the other person doesn’t notice but they do, it’s pretty obvious.
The key to becoming a better listener is to learn how to put down the phone and become fully immersed as if you are watching a jaw-dropping Grammy award-winning movie at an actual theater.
If you can get yourself into this mindset you will naturally find yourself asking the right questions as you are now genuinely curious about the development of their character.
If you do this you will stand out and become more likeable. Because if you think about it, how many people do you speak with regularly that watch your movie with a hundred percent of their focus. When you talk to them you can tell that they really care about what you’re going to say next.
Also read How to start a deep conversation [3 Easy Steps to Follow]
Usually, the only people who do this are your family best friends, and loved ones. So it’s actually very rare. This means if you listen to people like you’re watching a movie you will become extremely memorable.
People will want to come back and interact with you again because they know that when they do, they will feel as if they matter, they will feel as if their movie is actually worth watching.
If you want to watch the entire Robert Greene interview where he goes over a lot more about addiction his life story and self-improvement in general then here is the link.
Hope you guys liked all the tips on how to be more likeable. Please share this with your friends and family.
