Selling Your Likability 39
judgment about you. It’s an instantaneous feeling of like, dislike,
neutrality or, pity. We never realized it, but our “public” face is
quite different from our “personal” or “social” face.
Make it a point to begin watching other people in all kinds of
common situations such as getting on an elevator, nodding a greet-
ing at someone in the office first thing in the morning, getting on
a bus or subway, or at the checkout counter. There’s almost never
an expression of genuine warmth, caring, or affection.
That brings me to my third definition of communication.
Remember:- Communication is the transfer of information from
mind to mind. - Communication is an information transplant.
- Communication is an intellectual act of love.
It’s a heavy concept. It takes a lot of thought to accept. But it
happens to be true. An audience reacts in kind. When you look as
though you’re ill at ease as you speak, you make your audience
feel the same way about you. When you look as though you don’t
care about your audience, they don’t care back. But when you
make intellectual love to your audience, they have no choice but
to like you back. And never forget: Likability wins.
The smile
First, consider the smile. It says, “I’m happy to be here.” It’s
a wonderful way to introduce yourself. It’s a wonderful recurring
tool for any communicator. But a word of caution: In order to be
effective, the smile has to be two things. It has to be genuine and
it has to be absolutely appropriate. Otherwise, you’ll look like the
village idiot. Picture the person smiling and saying, “I’m sorry
about the death in your family,” or, “Let’s talk now about AIDS.”
It always comes as a shock when the TV reporters look as if
they’re smiling or grinning when they broadcast, “Three thousand
people were left homeless when the earthquake struck in Nepal,”
or the weather reporter who appears to be having a great time
telling you, “Another tornado is on the way in the Southeast.”
The smiling face is a happy face. It must only appear at happy
or pleasant times. Many women have said to me, “People tell me I
smile too much.” My answer to them is, “Maybe the smile ap-
pears too often at inappropriate times.” I don’t think it’s possible