They seem really likable and authentic and like the kind of person that even you would want to get to know.

And then I feel like there's the rest of us.

We're awkwardly navigating through various conversations, afraid of saying the wrong thing and then inevitably still laying in bed at night wondering, "Why did I open my mouth at all?"

What is it about somebody that makes them so magnetic and charismatic and likable?

Well, according to Vanessa Van Edwards, who's the author of this audio book I listened to recently called Cues.

She said that highly charismatic people rank high in two specific traits: warmth and competence.

But here's the problem.

Most of us have an imbalance between these two traits.

We tend to be either more warm or more competent, but very few of us possess a good balance of both.

So if like me, you're highly warm, you know that it has its perks.

You come across as very trustworthy, compassionate and friendly, essentially, you're approachable and you make people feel comfortable.

But the downside is this overwhelming warmth can sometimes overshadow your competence.

It can leave others with the impression that you're not particularly impressive or powerful.

On the flip side, if you lean more towards competence, I feel like Robin is very competent, for example.

Then you're someone who is seen as capable, respectable, important.

People take you seriously and they really listen when you've got something to say, but the downside is you might come across as unapproachable or intimidating.

So in both cases, your strength can also be your weakness.

And what you'll find is that people who are charismatic often have a good balance between both warmth and competence.

So today, we're going to dive into some social skills that genuinely help to make people more interesting and charismatic.

Let's get into it.

I'm naturally a very awkward person.

And one of the books that helped me to become a better communicator was Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People.

And one of the most impactful tips that I took away from that book is to use people's names in conversations.

Carnegie says that a person's name is the sweetest and most important sound to them.

And it makes sense, right?

Like our name has been a part of our identity since we were born.

So using someone's name in a conversation immediately creates familiarity and rapport.

Casually using someone's name in conversation, it radiates warmth, but also competence like you remember their name.

But if you're anything like me you have a very hard time remembering people's names and this is where Carnegie gave a tip to try to repeat the person's name three times during your first initial conversation with them.

Just to help to commit it to memory.

So you could say something like, "Hey, what's your name? Robin?"

"Oh, hey, Robin, nice to meet you."

"Is that Robin with a Y or with an I?

Bam, I just said their name three times.

I used to feel so much pressure in social interactions; pressure that I had to say something interesting or that I had to be interesting,

until I learned and this is again from Carnegie, he said, "Be interested. Not interesting."

I think at its core, people will find you interesting if you find them interesting, all of us just wanna feel acknowledged and listened to and the best way to connect with somebody is to just truly care about what they're saying.

And you can show this through your actions by asking questions by leaning in and using non verbal cues, like smiling and nodding to show them that you're fully engaged in the conversation.

And now this is a crucial tip: if somebody shares with you that for example, they love to paint.

I think it can kind of be almost an instinct for us to try to relate that story back to our own life.

So you might say something like, "Oh, my uncle paints too."

And while you might think that this creates a sense of shared experience,

it can actually really derail the conversation because it's taking the story away from them and it's turning it towards yourself.

So instead of following your connection to the subject, you can instead try to follow your curiosity, ask them about their arts.

You know, whether they prefer acrylics or oils, ask them about their latest creation.

Essentially, this just gives them space to share more and it continues to show that you're interested in them.

Ultimately, people will remember not what you did or what you said, but how you made them feel.

Now when the conversation does turn to you try to use something called conversational threading.

This essentially means offering several threads or topics that the other person can hook on to, to keep the conversation rolling.

So for example, if someone were to ask, "What did you do this weekend?" instead of saying, "Oh, nothing, I just relaxed,"

which is innocent enough, and it's really okay to also respond like that if you don't want the conversation to continue,

but essentially, if you do say that it kind of shuts the conversation down.

So what you could try to say instead is "Oh, not much. I went for a hike. I tried a new sushi place. And I also started this really great new book."

You see what this does is it offers the other person several opportunities for what they can ask next.

They could ask you know, "Where did you go hiking? What book are you reading?"

All in all, it just creates more opportunities to connect.

It invites trust and it radiates warmth in social interactions.

I think we often feel like we need to be perfect, especially for meeting somebody for the first time.

But striving for perfection can actually create distance.

It can make us seem inapproachable or inauthentic.

In psycholog, the pratfall effect suggests that people become more likable when they display some form of vulnerability or if they make a mistake, as long as they were generally competent to begin with.

So for example, we started noticing this when we started adding bloopers to some of our videos.

It took our videos from looking very curated, clean, perfect to being a bit more relatable, and our audience really, really seems to love it.

Yay for nutrition and ground flax seed. That's felt so cheesy.

Heading our way over to Austria and start ending.

This is a bloody mess.

So obviously, this isn't about purposefully making mistakes or adopting flaws.

It's more about not hiding imperfections when they naturally come up and let this take a whole lot of the pressure off.

You know, it means that you can laugh when you've made a clumsy mistake.

It means you can admit when you don't know something.

Genuinely, it makes you more relatable, more likable, more endearing.

In psychology, there's also this really interesting principle known as spontaneous trait transference.

The idea is that if you describe somebody as say, hard-working or smart, whoever is listening to your story might associate you with those very traits.

But the reverse is also true.

If you label somebody as lazy or unreliable, you might find that you also get associated with those same labels.

Sometimes we feel that gossiping about somebody makes us more relatable and likable because we've got the inside scoop; we've got some juicy details to share.

But what my sister always used to tell me is that if someone is gossiping to you, chances are they're also gossiping about you.

Subconsciously, we might start to feel like that other person is not very trustworthy or that they're not very kind.

And so this isn't like a cautionary tale against gossiping, but more so just like a reminder that how we talk about others shapes how we ourselves are viewed.

So if you're gonna chat about somebody else, try to speak about them positively, it's also gonna reflect positively on you.

You do not need to be Elon Musk or have a Ph.D. in mathematics to be seen as competent and interesting.

I feel that every single one of us has skills and hobbies that we excel at, even if it's something like cooking or crocheting, you know, what seems mundane to you is definitely gonna be fascinating to somebody else.

So don't underestimate your expertise.

Own your skills and don't shy away from sharing them in conversations either. It shows confidence and competence which people are naturally drawn to.

When you appreciate your own unique qualities and you're authentically engaged in your own life, you're gonna naturally exhibit a self assured confidence that other people are gonna find worthy of respect.

So becoming likable and respected is not about some elusive X factor; it's about balancing warmth and competence.

Making other people feel at ease while also being authentically engaged in your own life.

And I think the most important tip of all is to go into a conversation with the intention of having fun rather than with the intention of saying, you know, "I hope they like me."

I hope you enjoyed today's video.

If you did feel free to give it a thumbs up, it always means a lot.

Thanks for hanging with me today, friends.

Pick Up Limes signing off and I'll see you in the next video.