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Lesson Info

How to Be Memorable

Welcome, everyone, to day eight, which is how to be memorable, so my goals for today are threefold. One, I wanna build your social superpower, unleash that inner superhero. Second, I wanna increase your likability. Memorability is about likability, and we just started learning about likability in the last segment with surprise. And third, I want to start to fight your nerves, take out that anxiety, that nervousness that can come around certain people interactions. But first, as always, we have a little warm up to get our juices flowing, so one of the things that people love is they love it when you get naked. It's a great people skill to have, so I want everyone to stand up. We're gonna practice this, so the first thing you've gotta do, you've gotta power pose a little. It's a little bit nerve-wracking, getting naked, so we gotta get that testosterone up, yep, get that cortisol down, and the second thing you do is I want you to shed your layers, so if you want you can (thuds) Ooh, shed...

ding my layers. If you want, you can go ahead and you can take off your shoes, get comfortable, we're gonna get comfortable, just shed your layers, take 'em off, I love, especially if you're in heels, ladies, you can take 'em off if you want. And the last part is the most important part. And I want you to show your goodies, so let me demonstrate this, and this is a hard thing, lemme show you how this works. So when you show your goodies and show your inner strength, and I have inner strength for everyone today, so you can show your inner strength, so that we show our inner vulnerability. Hey, J.K., will you help me pass these out? I don't wanna hit people in the face in the back row by doing it, so of course, I'm talking about getting emotionally naked, not getting completely naked, you can sit down if you want. Were you guys nervous that I was actually gonna have you take off your clothes? (laughter) Anyone, at home, I hope you're already naked. I hope you just did it since you're by yourself. I wondered what I signed. You wondered what you signed, you're like oh my gosh. So can I be naked on CreativeLive, is that allowed? No, we're a family show, guys. Oh, I'm sorry, Dick, did I not toss one to you? We had bonking already. (laughs) We had bonking already, so ... We are talking about getting emotionally naked, not just physically naked, and the reason for this is because so many of us have our protective layers on. We have this shield that we put up 'cause we're afraid to show our inner vulnerability. So, this is what gets us to the next level on the path to connection, so we have our hook, we have our deposit that we did, where we learned our first impression, and we learned how we can make emotional deposits in people's bank accounts. Now, we're into emotional fracking, tapping in a little deeper and seeing what kind of connection we can make on a deeper level, and that is all about showing vulnerability. So, I wanna talk about something that's called the iceberg illusion. So, the iceberg illusion is that we only see the very, very top of someone. When you're looking at an iceberg, nine tenths of the iceberg is underwater. We don't actually see it, so what we see when we're interacting with people is only the very top. We don't get to see all of their inner layers. We don't get to see their inner strengths, or their goodies. So there's a myth about people skills, which is that memorable people are perfect, that confidence has to be effortless, and that charisma has to be weakness-free. And today I wanna show you that that is not the case at all. In fact, one quote by Ash Beckham, which I love, is that "Everyone is in a closet of some kind." That all of us feel like we're hiding something or we don't want something to come out during a personal interaction, whether that's nerves or being rejected or a memory or that we don't feel like we're credible enough we all have something that's holding us back and so what I did two years ago is I wanted to tap into this feeling that we're all hiding something, that we feel ashamed about something, and I asked people to send me their vulnerabilities. I said, "I want you to anonymously send me "some of your deepest secrets." I know that's a big ask, and we got the most amazing responses. We got some silly and funny ones, we got some deep ones, and I wanted to share some of them with you, some of the secrets that we got on our blog. So the first one, "I have a college degree ... "but sometimes I forget which is my left hand." Totally can relate, I'm always like, "Left, Right." Or this one, "I work with kids "because I'm afraid to grow up," a really interesting note. "I toilet papered my own house when I was nine "just to see how it felt," and he sent this to me on toilet paper, "it felt great." So he's afraid his parents will see that, don't worry, it's anonymous. "I hate the sound of my own voice. "I worry that my dog only likes me "because I can open his food bin, and he can't." I wanted to write back, it's all anonymous, I wanted to write back and be like, "I promise they like, he likes you anyway, "he just loves his food," or this one, "I'm terrified someone will figure out "I always feel like I don't belong" and this one really resonated with me because I often feel that way, that I just don't belong, and so I completely resonate with this one. So what I asked the audience to do, and what I want you to do at home, is I want you to write down the answer to this question: "When I interact with people, I am afraid that ..." and I already asked the audience to think about these answers ahead of time, so at home, in your notebook, I want you to write down "When I interact with people, I'm afraid that ..." so this is my little fear hat. So what I want to do is, everyone anonymously put in the answer to this question, and I wanna pass around the hat, and I want you to pull one out, and I want you to read one of your fellow audience members' answers to "When I interact with people, I'm afraid that ..." And I want, if it resonates with you, I want you to raise your hand. You resonate with that answer. Nathan, would you mind starting with the fear hat? Put yours in there, yeah. All right, so Jason, you can go ahead and start us off. "When I interact with people, I am afraid "that they don't see me as myself." That one is definitely, definitely true for me. Maggie, what's yours say? "When I interact with people, I'm afraid "that I will be negatively judged." Yeah, totally; Lacey? "When I interact with people, I'm afraid "that the point I want to make won't "come across due to lack of confidence." All the time, especially in business, that one's so true for me, yeah? "I'm afraid that I will make a decision "based on avoiding fear and miss out on something great." Missed opportunities, all the time, FOMO, right? I always see that when I see events, and I'm like, "Should I go to this? "Am I gonna miss out on an opportunity "'cause I'm too nervous to go to this event?" "When I interact with people, "I'm afraid that I'm boring them." Yes, and that's how we're anti-boredom. I bored a lot of people for a long time. "When I interact with people, I'm afraid "that I won't know what to say, "or I'll run out of things to say." Absolutely, why do you think we have a list of conversation starters (laughter) in this course, 'cause I am constantly afraid I'm not gonna know what to say; Terry? "When I interact with people, I'm afraid "that I will say or do something embarrassing "and they will judge me." Yeah. I'm always afraid of being judged. "When I interact with people, "I'm afraid that they think I'm a dork or a geek." You know, I wanna talk about that one a little bit. So I also am afraid they're gonna think I'm a dork or a geek, but I actually wanna embrace that. Maybe geeky isn't so bad, maybe that's your unique brand of charisma. Whoever wrote that, maybe a little geeky isn't so bad. Maybe that's you; maybe we can talk about owning that. I hope that by the end of the course, you're not so afraid of that. "When I interact with people, I'm afraid that rejection." Rejection, absolutely, yeah, totally me. "When I interact with people, I'm afraid "that they will pick up on how nervous I am." Absolutely, that's why that spark, double hands, (laughs) yeah, that one, that's why that spark we talked about, getting that inner confidence up there, to make sure that you feel your confidence and you know that it becomes contagious. So, "When I interact with people, "I'm afraid that I'll say something stupid, "offend them, or expose too much about myself." Exposing, that's a very interesting one. I sometimes do wear my heart on my sleeve and I never know what's gonna fly out of my mouth. That is definitely true, yeah. "When I interact with people, I'm afraid "that they'll be mean and judgy and think I'm weird." Yeah, mean and judgy and think that I'm, what was it? Weird. Weird, totally. Yeah, we're gonna talk about that in our fear section today, segment 13. "When I interact with people, "I am afraid of being ignored." Ignored and forgotten, I often am afraid I'm gonna be forgotten, yeah. Oh, there's no more? Someone didn't fill out their afraid that. Well, if you wouldn't mind sharing one that you're afraid about, even if it's already been read? I, ah, I guess all of them, yeah, a lot of them. And I can share what one of mine is, is that belonging one that we talked about, is I constantly am afraid that people are gonna figure out that I don't actually belong in the place that I am, yeah. Do you have one that you're willing to share or one that really resonated with you, that you heard? I guess I'm afraid that I won't be as interesting, depending on the situation. Yeah, and what was your word that we talked about when we put up what do you want people to think, what was your word? That I need to be more warm, too direct otherwise. Got it, I love it, so, the amazing thing about this exercise is, every single one of those resonated with me for different parts of my life and different times in my life, and we forget, because of the iceberg illusion, that we only see the very top. We only see someone when they're full guns going, "Oh yeah, I love this networking event," but we don't see what's under, and so today I'm hoping to talk about what's under and then bring that out and show that it's okay. The reason that we hold some of these fears so close to our heart is because we are afraid that people will find us unworthy if it's revealed. It's about worth, that we're afraid if we're nerdy or if we're geeky or if we're low confidence, or if we're uninteresting, all those things that we brought up, that we would be unworthy of their business, of their connection, of their love. It's about inner worth. Here's the thing, though, and this is the good part. Our mistakes are what make us beautiful. Our complexity, our vulnerability, that's what makes us human, that's what makes us memorable. When you open up to someone, and you share a vulnerability, that makes you more memorable. I know that's like a little terrifying, you're like, "Oh my god, is she gonna make me "talk about more vulnerabilities in public?" and I wanna talk about a safe way to share those vulnerabilities. I also have the science to prove that this is worth it. It is worth looking at some of our mistakes and showcasing some of our vulnerabilities. So one study that was done by Dr. Richard Wiseman, he wanted to know, does perfect make us charismatic? This myth that you have to be perfect, have everything with a nice little bow, that makes people memorable and charismatic, does that actually work? So what he did is he hired two actresses. One actress went into a mall, and there was a whole bunch of people walking around, and she had to demonstrate a blender. She walked up to the table and she was perfect. She walked up to the table, she said, "Here is our amazing blender, and today "I'm going to make a smoothie for you," and she put in the fruit and she pressed the button and it blended, and she poured everyone drinks, and it was a perfect presentation. Then the second actress had the exact same presentation, the same smoothie, the same set up, the same script, but when she came on, she came up and she pressed the button, but when she was pouring the drinks, she spilled the smoothie all over the table. Now, this was actually rehearsed ahead of time, but she spilled it so that the smoothie got all over the table, and she kinda had to fix it a little bit and then she passed out the drinks afterwards, a little bit of sticky glasses. Every single person in the audience who watched rated her as more likable and more memorable and she doubled the amount of blenders that were sold. Which is crazy, right? We think that we have to go into a pitch or a networking event or a date with the perfect answers. The perfect pitch, nothing can go wrong. When I'm preparing this course, I run through my slides at night, and I'm like, "I can't make a mistake, I can't make a mistake," and I'm like, day eight, it's okay if I make a mistake. People still think that you are human if you make a mistake; in fact, they think that you are more human. Even in songs, we hear about mistakes. The top songs admit vulnerability, and those are the songs that resonate most with us. Bruno Mars: "I gave you all I had, you tossed it in the trash, you tossed it in the trash, you did." Taylor Swift: "Been here all along, "so why can't you see, you belong with me?" Amy Winehouse: "They tried to make me "go to rehab, but I said no, no, no." Rick Springfield: "You know, "I wish that I had Jessie's girl." Even the songs that are in pop culture, it's the vulnerable ones that get us. It's not the one that's like ♪ I'm awesome, here's my name ♪ I can't even sing, but it's not the songs that are singing about how awesome they are. It's not those songs that get us. It's the ones where they sing about vulnerability. So this is skill number 13, so we are learning 33 people skills in this course. These are the skills that make highly successful people successful, and number three is embracing our imperfections. It's that vulnerability makes us human, it makes us relatable, and it makes us authentic. How do we use this in a way that's comfortable? How do we do this without showing up to a networking event or a date and just blurting out all of our secrets and vulnerabilities, because I don't think that's a good idea. So the way that I recommend doing it is with something that's called the Franklin Effect. So Benjamin Franklin is one of the greatest thinkers of our time, and he in his autobiography wrote about something that he called the Franklin Effect which is the idea that asking for a favor actually wins you friends, that admitting vulnerability and asking for help makes people like you and want to help you more. It's a little bit counterintuitive, we usually don't think that asking for help will make someone like us more. So let me talk about the Franklin Effect science. First let me tell you how Benjamin Franklin discovered this and then I wanna show you how it was proven in a lab. So Benjamin Franklin was in Congress, and he needed to rerun for office and he realized that he did not have enough votes to win. He counted up the people in the Congressional Congress and he was like, "I'm not gonna make it," and the reason for this was because he had an arch nemesis, someone else in the Congress who just had it out for him, and this guy had a little crony, a group of cronies, and a clique, and he said, "We are not voting Benjamin Franklin in again." Benjamin Franklin was like, "I have gotta "figure out how to get on this guy's good side." Could've gotten gifts, could've tried to suck up to him, could've tried to pitch him on how he would be great for a second term, but what he did instead, was he asked him for a favor. This man was known for having a rare book collection, he was a big rare book collector, so Franklin wrote him a note and said, "I've heard that you have this amazing rare book collection. "I've been trying to find this one book. "Do you happen to have it? "Could I trouble you, could I borrow it, "for just a week, I would love to read it. "I will return it to you promptly." Sure enough, the man did have the book in his collection. He sent back a messenger with a note that said, "No problem, here's the book for you, enjoy it." Benjamin Franklin read it, wrote a thank you note, returned it a week later, and said, "I loved the book, thank you so much." That started them talking about their passion for books. Benjamin Franklin was a printer and a writer so he loved books, and so slowly they started to build a friendship, and every time they saw each other, the arch nemesis, which was slowly not becoming so much of an arch nemesis, asked him, "So what are you reading? "Do you wanna come by and check out my library? "We can talk about books," and slowly they became friends, and Benjamin Franklin was voted a second time into Congress because he was able to sway that arch nemesis with a favor. Pretty powerful and incredible. What a clever way to go about winning someone over. So, the science is there to prove it as well, that asking for favors makes people like us more. Here's what they did; they wanted to see if this Franklin Effect works. They developed an experiment with three different trials. In the first trial, they had people come in and take a math test, and the experimenter, who was actually an actor, would stand over them and kinda yell at them and make them feel bad. He'd be like, "Oh, that was a dumb answer. "Can't get that one, man you're slow, you're taking forever on this test." Just like making them feel terrible. I feel so bad for people in experiments. College students get experimented on all the time. And what he did was, after they finished the test, they won money for the amount of questions they got right. I think it was like a dollar for every right answer. They left the lab and the researcher would chase after them and say, "Hey, can I ask you for a favor? "I'm running low on money for the experiment. "Would you mind giving me your money, "your winnings back, so I can keep funding the experiment?" And sometimes they would give it back and sometimes they wouldn't. That was the first trial. Second trial, same researcher, same meanness, same quiz, but this time, after the person left the lab, a secretary ran after and said, "Excuse me, "the researcher, can we ask you for a favor? "He's running out of money; "would you mind giving your winnings back, "we're running out of money, so "we can keep funding the lab here?" A couple people gave back. In the last trial, they had the quiz, they were mean, they got berated, they left the lab and no one asked them for money. Now, a few days later, they emailed every single person who got, in all the different trials, and asked them, "Would you please "rate the experimenter for likability, "intelligence, charisma, on a scale of one to ten?" If you can believe it, the first one, where the experimenter chased after them and asked for a favor, and said he was spending too much money, he got off the charts ratings on likability and charisma and influence. Which is crazy, he went after them and asked them for their winnings back, but it made him more human, even though he had just been mean to them and judgy. Now, I don't want you to be mean to people and judgy and berate them, and then ask for a favor. That's not what I'm asking for. But that made people see, "Wow, this guy is human." So, when you use the Franklin Effect, it does three different things. It admits vulnerability, it helps people feel useful, so you actually get them to tap into what they can do, how they can help you, and the last one is it encourages teamwork, "We're in it together." Now, I don't want you to go asking for favors from a bunch of different people. That's not what I'm encouraging. What I want us to do is get into the habit of asking for advice. Advice is the best way to authentically use the Franklin Effect. Here's why: one, it gets people talking about themselves, which we learned triggers dopamine. When you ask someone for their opinion, their advice, they can then explore how they think they can help you. Second, it stimulates very interesting conversation. If you bring up a vulnerability of something you genuinely want their opinion on, you get to talk about what they think, what you think, what struggles you've had, what the problem is, all the details of the problem. And lastly, it admits in an authentic way vulnerability and the need for guidance, so right now, I want us to think about what in our life, personal or professional, do we need help with? What in your life could you use a little bit of advice on? So I wanna bring two people on stage to talk about it and then I want you to turn to your partner and talk about it. Jason and Maggie, you guys wanna join me on stage? And everyone, I want you to turn to your partner. What's an area in your business or in your life you need a little help with? At home, I want you to write down what are the areas that you could use a little bit of extra guidance on, and I want you to listen to some of our students' answers for some inspiration, come on up. All right, so, any ideas about what you could use some advice on in your business or social life? Do you wanna go? I definitely need a lot of help in public speaking, and speaking on camera, so ... Hey, good job today, then. I love it, yeah. Okay, so should I tell you what I need help with, or? Yeah, what's the area that you could use a little bit of extra guidance on? I need help with focus, so I have a lot of different things going on and I'm realizing that I need to just really be able to focus on one or two things. I love it, so maybe that's figuring out someone who can help you with action steps or honing in on something, I like it. All right, I'm gonna follow up with those. Sit down, really quickly, okay. Sorry that was so quick. (chuckles) All right, are we ready? I know that was really quick. So there's a second part to this question. Now you've just identified an area in your social life or your business life that you need a little help on. Who can you ask, who in your life, could be someone you know or you don't know or you know through someone else, where could you go ask for help? Who could you go ask for help on this? I actually wanna do this together, so Kim, you need a mike, yes, or you're miked? You're miked, perfect, so what was the area you needed help on in your business? I actually need help with figuring out how to distribute my program to a larger group of people. And who can you ask for help about that? Well, ironically enough, this happens to be an area of expertise that Michael knows about. (laughs) And when we were chatting over breakfast, he was like, "Oh, I know all about that. "We should talk later." Perfect. You have a lot of meals left, so I love it. I love it; Erica, how about you? I'm hiding behind the fact that I, my engineering degree, so even though I've let go of that, I want to be interesting and I think I think that, I'm hiding behind that because I don't think I'm interesting enough. Who can you ask for emotional support? This is more of an emotional issue as opposed to a logistical one. Who can you ask for help? Well, my husband and I have actually already sort of dialogued and sort of played it a little bit and so I'm getting better, and so even like I'm inserting the engineer maybe later (laughs) in the conversation, and but I still, that tendency is still there. I got it, so your partner, just dialoguing with someone emotionally supportive is the way that you wanna ask for help. So what I want you to do is, in your workbook, I want you to write down not only what you need help with, but who you can ask for help in this area, who you can ask for guidance on, and it can be emotional guidance, it can be logistical guidance, it can be advice guidance, it can be any kind of guidance as long as you're asking for help. This is an authentic way that we can use the Franklin Effect. Here are a couple transition ideas, by the way, people, I got it from people who were just like, "I'm just nervous about bringing this up with people." Does this really work, yes it does increase likability in most peers and people who are not less in terms of intelligence but at a little bit, like my daughter for example, she's at a different position than what I am so it makes sense to do this with her but how does this work with people who are actually more intelligent and more confident and better? This is the best way to reach out to people who are "more important," although I don't really agree that people are ever more important than us. But this is the best way to reach out to VIPs. For example, I had an intern who reached out to me and she was like, "Hey, I know I just started "working with you, but could you "write me a recommendation letter "for another job that I'm applying to for my research?" And I had worked with her, researching, but I was like, "Yeah, I would be happy to." And so I started to go through her work ethic and how responsible she's been, how much I've loved her emails. Writing that thank you note, writing that recommendation letter made me realize that I actually know a few people who she would be good, she would be great for, so I said to her, "If you don't get the job, let me know. "I have a clue of who I can send this to." When I get emails from people who are asking me for a favor, with a very specific piece of advice question, it is actually easier for me to respond. When people say, "Hey, can I write a guest list for you?" sometimes, as we saw yesterday, I don't always know how to respond, but I've had people occasionally who've been, like, "Hey, I'm in college "and I'm trying to decide between sociology "and anthropology, and I wanna do body language. "Do you think that there's a preference of the two? "What were your favorite courses that you took?" That's a question that I can easily answer for them so I think it's actually the best way to work with VIPs; they love giving advice because they've learned it the hard way. I've made a ton of mistakes, I don't want anyone else to make them. So actually thank you for that question. So couple of really easy transition ideas for you, if you're in conversation, I want you to prethink about who you can ask for help, but this also works great on the spot, at networking events, at pitch meetings, if you get a big coffee with a big VIP, a couple of transition ideas you can use in conversation or in email: "I would love your advice on something." That's the very easiest way that you can bring up what you need help with. "Hey, can I brainstorm some ideas with you "about this new ___ I'm working on?" Or, "Speaking of which, do you have any thoughts "on how to fix/change/solve?" You can use it on the phone, you can use it in email, and you can use them on the spot. If you're with someone and you go, "Wow, they're talking about," I know that Maddie's thinking about building an online course. You're talking to someone, you find out, "Wow, this person has their own online course. "I might wanna try and ask them "how did you launch it or how did you film it?" All right, the second thing is to be transparent. The second way that we harness imperfections, we embrace our imperfections, is to always be transparent and studies show that the more transparent we are and the earlier we do it, the better. A lot of the time, we have a vulnerability or something we're nervous about, especially in business, so you're meeting with a colleague, you're going into a job interview, you're going to a pitch, and there's something you're a little bit nervous about. Actually, and this is counter intuitive, embracing it early or admitting it early on gains you respect. What they did was, is they asked, they brought people into the lab and they filmed them on job interviews. They had them answer ten different questions and in many of those interviews, there was a vulnerability that came out. Maybe they got fired from a previous job, maybe they had a bad GPA, maybe they had a little bit of jail time, whatever it was, a little vulnerability that came out, and what they did is they reordered the order of the questions, they showed them to job interviewers, and they had job interviewers rate the candidates on hireability. And what they found was, when the vulnerability was admitted in the first or second question, that person was much more likely to get hired, but when it came out at the end of the interview, it was seen as hiding a weakness, it was seen as sneaky, and it was seen as less trusting. This happened to me just the other day. I went to a restaurant and the waitress came over, and I said, "What's the soup of the day?" And she was like, "It's chicken barley, but it's not very good." I have never actually heard a waitress say that their own soup is bad, but every recommendation that she made on the menu after that I trusted. I was like, "If she told me their soup isn't good," and so I wasn't gonna ask her this, but I was like, "So what do you recommend?" She's like, "Best by far is the chicken sandwich. "Get that one," and I trusted her, because she admitted a mistake or a vulnerability early on. So, the second part of being transparent is using the three most powerful words in the English language, and it is not "I love you," it is "I don't know," especially if you're in a career where you need to be seen as the expert, it is scary that we don't know. If you're in a job where your boss asks you something, and you don't know the answer, pretending to know the answer is not only has a lack of transparency, but you lose the opportunity to embrace an honest imperfection. Saying "I don't know," but following it up with an action step by saying, "But I'm gonna find out for you, "and here's how I'm gonna find out," that is the way that you build credibility, that you build likability. That is having a social superpower. When you don't know the answer and you admit it upfront like that, people are like, "Wow, great, "I can trust what you're gonna say "because I know that you'll tell me the truth," and this works extremely well with clients. "I don't know the answer to that, "but I'm going to follow up with you "and I'll get back with you in two days." A little bit of inspiration is Dyson vacuums. So you know Dyson vacuums, so Dyson was sort of the bottom of the market in the vacuum cleaner market in the 70s, and Dyson had an idea where he was like, "I wanna make the barrel of the Dyson canister transparent. "I wanna make it clear," so what he did was, is he made it all clear so you could see all the dirt that was coming up the vacuum cleaner, and people in the vacuum industry laughed at him. They were like, "Are you crazy? "People don't wanna see their dirt. "They don't wanna see what's coming up the carpet, it's disgusting." Dyson's like, "No, I think this is gonna sell." Of course, he launched that vacuum cleaner, and it sweeped the market. Dyson is now the number one vacuum seller on the market and this is about transparency. Instead of hiding all the work that the vacuum is doing, he's like, "I know it's ugly, but I want you to see it, "see that it works," so transparency is also about showing how hard we are working, even if it's not the prettiest. The third way to harness our imperfections is the power of the apology. So, studies have found that even when you're wrong, apologizing makes people trust you. Even when you've made a mistake, coming up front and apologizing makes people want to believe you. They go, "Wow, they are transparent about their apology." Here is how to apologize; it is rough, apologizing is hard, so I want you to, you can mark this off in your workbook, I have directions on this in your workbook. Here's what you do if you make a mistake. Do it early, do it up front, you make a mistake with a client or a boss, here's what you do. One, "I did wrong," admit the mistake right away. Two, "I'm sorry," and acknowledge the damage. One of the biggest problems is when people say sorry they just give a bunch of excuses. They say, "Here's why it happened," but they don't actually acknowledge, "I know this probably made your life really hard. "I know that you were counting on me for this. "I'm sorry I did wrong," and the third one is, "How can I fix it," and that might be a question, "What can I do to make this better," or it could be a suggestion. "Let me go into solution mode with you. "Here are the ideas I have to solve it." When you apologize this way, it makes people understand they can trust you, they can believe what you say, it builds your credibility. Again, I have this in your workbook, so if that happens, you're never gonna make mistakes, I know, you're never gonna make any mistakes, but in case you do, you have that in your workbook, you can just open that page and follow those instructions on how to do it, email, phone, and in person. Here's some of the side effects of sharing vulnerability, so studies have found, and I love this study, it's called Eavesdropping on Happiness, that's what this study is called, and what they found was, in conversation, in small talk, when people admitted a vulnerability, a couple things happened: first of all, they both rated each other as more likable. Second, they both rated each other as more authentic, and both of them came away feeling happier, so they found that one of the keys to happiness is admitting all of our vulnerabilities and examining our problems with others. I love this quote by Socrates, "The unexamined life is not worth living." We are here to examine our complexities. What's the point of interacting with people if we're not gonna go deep with them? Two things, if I haven't convinced you yet, which is called the Spotlight Effect, and this is "Your mistakes don't matter as much as you think." So let's say that you have a vulnerability you think is going to be crushing. You're like, "No one's gonna like me if I admit this, there's no way." The Spotlight Effect says that we focus all of our attention on one thing, and we think it's super obvious, but actually, people don't typically notice, and the way that they tested this is at Cornell University, he polled the student body and asked, "What's the most cheesy pop star "that you can think of," and they voted on Barry Manilow, who was the cheesiest pop star they could think of. So what he did is, he brought participants into the lab, and he made them all wear Barry Manilow t-shirts for an entire day, and then he asked them, "How many people "do you think on campus are gonna notice "you're in a Barry Manilow shirt?" And then he cataloged and asked every person who saw that person, how many people actually noticed they were wearing a Barry Manilow t-shirt. So people guessed it was double the amount of people who actually noticed. This is the Spotlight Effect: we think everyone notices our mistakes, we think everyone notices our vulnerability. We have a pimple or our hair is bad, we're like, "Oh my god, it's all they can see." That's all they can see, but really, people aren't looking for your mistakes. You're the only one looking for your mistakes. Putting it into perspective, the National Science Foundation estimates that we have an average of 50,000 plus thoughts a day, so even if someone thinks about you ten times, that's only .02% of daily thoughts, just to put it into a little perspective. So I want you to think about, in your workbook and at home, what you can do in your business or your social life to be more transparent or admit vulnerabilities. I want you to journal about that, keep what could you do to reach out to someone to increase your likability. Here's what's coming up next; we are solidly in fracking, delving a little bit deeper into humans. Tomorrow we're talking about how to be the highlight, how to light up the room and the art of genuine, authentic charm, and lastly, how to be socially attractive. Now, day ten, that is when we are getting into the personality matrix, that's taking it to another level, guys, I'm really excited about it, I'm gonna teach you how to speed read personalities, gonna take us three days, day ten, 11, and 12, and we are going to learn how to find out how others see you, we're gonna learn to understand how people work, and we're gonna learn the secrets of personality. I'm very excited about it. So your challenges for today, we end every lesson on a challenge so you can take your learning and put it into action. One, I want you to reach out for advice. I want you to ask one person for just a little bit of help on what we talked about or it could be a new thing. I also want you to do what's called the Stranger Challenge, and this is a big one, and I'm gonna do it with you. The Stranger Challenge: when you walk up to a stranger and you ask for a favor, and here's what you're gonna ask them for ... You are gonna take three pictures with strangers power posing, and I want you to tweet them to me because I want to see you asking these strangers for help. Now, the whole point is that people are gonna say no. This is me, I asked Amy Cuddy, who's the original power poser, I asked her if she would power pose with me and she did. People are going to say no, that's the point. The point is to just getting into the habit of asking for a favor, and I want you to share the power pose love, give them a little bit of a confidence boost, and I want you to take a picture and I want you to tweet it to me. All right, it's time for what's the most important thing you learned today, what you're aha moment was, J.K., will you join me up here? I certainly will; I've learned that you're, how would you say, mover man? A mover man (laughs) a mover woman, I love it, and if you want you can take off your shoes too. On stage today, I took off my shoes. I did a pedicure for you, so ... You did, that's very good. Thank you. Well, you've probably not heard of the British pop star Sandie Shaw, she's the cheesiest pop star ever, and she always had that for me. So there you go, cheesiness. So what was the most important thing you learned today? What was your aha moment, yes? I've always felt that vulnerability is important, Well, not always, but I'm trying to make sure to get out there, but I really appreciate learning with science behind it, it gives me a little bit more of a boost and a little bit more of a yes, it's the right thing to do. Yes, there's reason behind it. Terry, how about you? What was your aha moment, something that clicked for you today? Well, asking for help; just last week, I started bowling again, after not bowling for a long time, so there's a new way of doing the scoring and everything. The people we were bowling against, they were kinda standoffish, but when I asked the guy for help in doing the scoring, it's like everything came together. I love that answer, can I give you a kiss? Can I throw you a kiss, that was awesome. I saw a hand back there, yeah? I feel very vulnerable being in a class and trying to learn while someone could be taking my picture, and worried about what other people that are gonna be watching this are thinking and I feel hugely relieved that instead of thinking, "Oh, that giant loser, "there she goes again asking a dumb question," that it will actually make people like me more. Absolutely, in fact-- The pressure's off! (laughs) We need to all give Allie some Twitter love. No, no, your question, you admitting you don't know is helping people at home, 'cause they're like, "I had the same question "but I couldn't ask it," yes! You're absolutely right, I mean, this is what our students do. They represent our people at home, and Allie, I know we're getting lots of love for you today. Yes, I wanna love too, here's a kiss for you. That applies to everybody, and also applies to everybody at home. I'm sure you've chosen the student who's representing you, and my big takeaway today was actually hearing that people's vulnerabilities are the same as my own. We all have the same ones; it's just great to share them and air them with Vanessa today, so this has been a great day eight. We're gonna see you back same time, same place, tomorrow, for day nine. We'll see you then. (applause)