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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:
1. Communication is the transfer of information from mind to mind.
2. Communication is an information transplant.
3. 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