Transcriber: Denise RQ Reviewer: Jeong-Lan Kinser
When I was 20 years old, the most exciting thing happened to me,
and at the exact same moment,
the worst, most miserable thing happened to me.
I got sick,
and when I got sick, I thought that my life was over,
I thought that I was going to die.
And I made a deal.
I said: "God, if you can get me through this,
I will live a life that means something."
I was scared of dying at that moment.
I said: "If I can just do it, I'll do whatever it takes to get there."
Now, luckily, I got better.
But now I was stuck in a position where I had to uphold my part of the bargain.
I said: "OK, I have to be successful, I have to do something big,
What am I going to do? I have no idea."
I was a kid from the projects in Brooklyn, New York.
I had no resources, no money, no connections.
But I started reading books.
And one idea that got deep into my head, over, and over again,
it's not what you know, it's who you know, right?
It's not what you know, it's who you know.
I said: "What am I going to do? I'm going to go to a bunch of events,
I will meet a bunch of people, I'm going to make it happen."
So, I started going to these events.
The challenge was: I started meeting tons of people,
and I was excited about it;
I'd collect a bunch of business cards, I'd email people.
And you know what happened? Nothing, nothing.
And it was unbelievably frustrating.
I didn't understand something.
There is a great quote from W. Clement Stone that said,
"Little hinges swing big doors."
I was doing all the big things right,
but there was a little hinge that I was doing wrong.
I want you to imagine this as an analogy.
Let's say you have a very long email,
and in that email there is a letter 'o', but you think is the number "zero."
You can have everything right,
but if that one little thing is off, the message doesn't get sent.
Basically, what I was doing when I was meeting all these people
as I was trying to impress them with how awesome I was,
and all the cool stuff I was going to be able to do--
Have you ever had a conversation with someone
where what all he does is talk about himself?
You can't wait to get out of that conversation.
Everyone I met couldn't wait to get away from it.
(Laughter)
And it took a longer time to figure this out.
But then, I started asking myself, "OK, what really is it about?"
And it's this idea I'm about to share with you,
that changed my life more than one idea that I could think of.
The idea is this: it's not really about what you know,
and it's not really about who you know.
What matters is who knows you and who likes you.
Think about this for a second.
If you have a job that you actually like.
The odds are high that someone you know who likes you, who trusts you,
who believes you would do well in that position, probably said:
"There's this thing that's opened up, I think you'd be a good fit,
I'd love you to go and do it."
Think of any opportunity that you've been a part of;
chances are, it was someone who knew about it, who liked you,
who decided to say: "This person deserves the shot at it."
That's what likeability is.
Likability is the art of getting people to say,
"I want to see this person succeed."
But here's the funny thing about it:
most people have a completely skewed view point on what likeability really is.
They think is about the most outstanding person, the most energetic person,
If they're an extrovert, if they're gregarious,
if they have these skill sets, and all that; it's not really what it is.
Because what I found
was the most frustrating thing of my research and my experiences.
By the way, I'm a big believer in reading and getting research,
but a huge believer that what happens in a book
and what happens in real life, sometimes don't always correlate.
Whenever I learn something, the first thing I would do
is, if someone says this works, "Let me apply it in the real world."
So I learned these ideas and I'd apply them.
Still not working right.
Because I was trying to become someone that I wasn't,
I was trying to emulate all these other people, their personality types.
But here's the crazy thing:
you got quiet people that are likeable, you got loud people that are likeable.
You got short people, tall people, people who're funny, people who're stoic.
All of these different personality types can still be likeable. But how?
It's because they have certain elements.
There are certain aspects about what they do
that are universal across the board.
Now, likeability is important because if you do not understand this,
you're going to find yourself in a position...
And maybe you've seen someone like this,
maybe they get constantly looked over for promotion,
or maybe cool things happen and they are never the one to know.
They have all the skills in the world.
They know all the right people.
But it doesn't pan out.
Likeability comes down to this
- I've learned tons of different things on likeability,
I've written about it, I podcasted about it,
there's tons of things that make it,
but there's one umbrella,
one grandaddy cause of them all that everything I believe falls under -
there's this simple idea:
to be likeable, you first have to become interested in people,
and then, they will become interested in you.
Or you can say, if you're interested in people, you become interesting to them.
Think about this for a second.
Remember the last time you had a conversation with someone,
who thought you were the best thing in the world:
"You did this? Tell me more. You did that? What!?"
Like it was the most exciting experience. You wanted to tell them more and more.
So, here's what I want you to do:
I want you to put on a hat, and imagine that you're are a detective.
Imagine every time you meet someone,
you want to find out something amazingly fascinating about them,
so you can help them, so you can find out more about them,
so you can see them succeed.
Don't ask for anything back, just care solely about that person.
And see how many cool things start coming back to you.
See how much like you start having.
By the way, if you already know someone,
imagine that between now and the last time you saw them,
something fascinating happened and you have to discover it.
If you live that life, you're going to help other people achieve their goals.
You, by definition, will achieve more goals.
And in my believe, you won't be afraid of death anymore.
I won't be afraid of death anymore.
Because you know you lived an awesome life.
Thank you.
(Applause)