The Most Helpful Guide To Being Likable (25 tips)

I was a shy kid when I was younger.

I wasn’t exactly normal. I had a blood disorder and I had a special teacher in class because I had trouble learning and fitting in.

Also, I had ridiculously curly hair, it was an afro.
Why did my parents let me have an afro!?

The worst part is that hair would be so awesome right now.
I was ahead of my time.

Needless to say, I just wanted some love… Or at least some like.

We all want to be liked, right? These days people generally like me, but sometimes I still feel like that weird kid with the curly hair. I’m still hoping to be liked every day.

So that is what I’m here to do today, help all the weird people become more likable… Okay, normal people can read this too.
Who am I kidding, NO ONE is normal!

So here it is: The Most Helpful Guide To Being Likable.
These tips are in no specific order. Let’s go!

1) Smile!

Everyone is happier around people who smile. If you smile more often, guess what? People will smile back. You will brighten up their day a little bit and they will like you more because of it!

70% of communication is non-verbal and when you smile you show that you are happy, confident, and attentive. This is key in becoming more likable.

2) Eye Contact!

Studies have shown that people who maintain higher levels of eye contact appear to be more likable, stable, confident, trustworthy and attractive, among other qualities.

Not only that, but maintaining eye contact shows that you are fully engaged in the interaction instead of thinking about tomorrows breakfast. People like being valued over breakfast foods, trust me.

3) Offer Compliments!

We are all insecure, and if you say you aren’t insecure then that means that you are not secure in your insecurities! So what should we do to help each other out with these pesky insecurities?

If you have something nice to say, SAY IT! A compliment can turn someone’s day around completely and they will like you more because of that.

4) Keep Promises!

No matter how small a promise is, it is still a promise. If you can’t keep to your word then no one will trust you. If people can’t trust you then how can they like you?

In this age of ditching plans and forgetfulness, reliability is a rare quality. If you keep promise people will remember.

5) Don’t Speak In Monotone!

Imagine the teacher from Ferris Bueller’s day off. Would you want to hang out with that guy?

No one wants to listen to someone who sounds like a robot. Use different tones and volumes in your speech to keep the other person’s attention.

6) Use Names!

We all like hearing our own name, it’s like a sweet song to us. It let’s us know that the person talking to us sees us as an individual and that they care enough to remember us.

This works even better if you remember someone’s name the second time you bump into them. It creates familiarity and comfort, which everyone likes.

7) Laugh!

There is something called the “law of state transference.” It states that if you are showcasing a certain emotion or state, that people around you are more likely to experience that emotion as well.

Can you remember the last time someone very sad was around you. It probably made you feel a little awkward, and sad as well. Even if your jokes aren’t the greatest, if you are genuinely laughing, the other person will be much more likely to laugh as well. Try it out!

8) Slight Touches!

We all like human contact. It releases small doses of the chemicals in our brain that can cause us to feel love. That doesn’t mean that if you touch someone they’ll turn into a love zombie for you, but a slight touch can cause someone to be more endeared towards you.

Just make sure they are very slight touches in safe place. Don’t reach below the belt. Keep it to the shoulders, arms, or upper back and do it in a joking and playful fashion.

9) Open Body Language!

70% of communication is non-verbal. When you stand with your arms crossed and your head slightly down you will be subconsciously conveying to everyone that you are not open to conversation or other people.

Open yourself up, lean back, uncross your arms and smile. All signs of openness will show people that you are ready to engage, and people will like that.

10) Pay Attention!

Use your listening skills, stay off your phone and show the people around you that when you are talking to them, they are your highest priority. No one wants to repeat themselves, and no one wants to talk to someone who doesn’t even value them enough to give them their attention.

11) Show Confidence!

When you are confident, people will gravitate towards you. If you seem awkward people will assume that any interaction with you will be awkward. And who wants that? Not me, not the cashier, and not even your grandmother.

12) Exit Small Talk ASAP!

Small talk is needed to start off a new relationship, but you will never leave any sort of lasting impact on people if you only ever engage in small talk.

Use my guide to get from small talk, to deep relationships and you will never have to spend twenty minutes discussing the weather again!

13) Find Common Ground!

Most of the time people enjoy talking about things that they enjoy. Who would have thought?

If you want someone to enjoy your company more and like you more, find some common ground that way you can both enjoy the conversation. This will create a snowball effect of enjoyment.

14) Provide Value!

If you can teach someone something, they will be more likely to remember and like you. It’s even better if it’s something that pertains to them. Providing value isn’t just for business, it’s for relationships as well.

15) Groom Yourself!

If you are smelly, people might not like being around you, sorry. You can’t change who you are but a general rule is that you should try not to be too offensive to the senses.

Groom yourself, shower, put a little effort into your style and you’ll instantly be more likable.

16) Be Positive!

Don’t be a Negative Nancy, a Debbie Downer, a Pessimistic Paul or a Gloomy Gary.

As we’ve learned you’ll end up bringing others down through the law of state transference and they won’t like it, or you, very much at all. Stay positive, people will like you more and you’ll like yourself more.

17) Tell Stories!

Nothing is better than a good story, and nothing is more painful than a bad one. Through good stories you can make people happy, make them laugh, teach them something, leave them in awe, or cause a whole spectrum of other outcomes.

Humans have communicated through stories since we could speak, and maybe even before that. Become a better story teller and all of your relationships will improve.

18) Tell a Secret!

Studies have shown that when you tell someone a secret, even a small one, it will make them trust you more. This is probably a similar effect to state transference, if someone trusts you enough to tell you a secret, then you are more likely to trust them.

And as we’ve said before in the promises section, a base level of trust is a requirement for likability. Secrets create familiarity as well, making you seem closer to the person you entrust your secret with.

19) Mirroring!

In the same vein as finding common ground, we like people who share similarities to us. A known way of creating that feeling of similarity and familiarity is to slightly mirror the person you are speaking with.

Standing in a similar stance and using similar hand gestures can help in creating this perceived similarity, but don’t focus on this to much or you won’t be paying attention. Which is point 10.

20) Ask a Small Favour!

The Benjamin Franklin Effect is the idea that when we do someone a favour, we justify it to ourselves by thinking that we did the favour because we like the person. If you ask someone for very small favours, they will oblige and then like you more. Plus, you will get the opportunity to thank them and they will feel good about themselves. It’s a win-win.

“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.”
-Benjamin Franklin

21) Be Humble!

While you should be confident enough to strike up conversations and hold your own, don’t brag too much and try to impress people. No one likes a ‘one-upper’, someone who always has to outdo every story that people tell.

Just be comfortable in who you are, and show some humility.

22) Don’t Judge Anyone!

You don’t want people to judge you, so why would anyone enjoy being judged by you.

Even if you aren’t judging the person that you are talking to, if you are judging others around them, they will assume you judge them when they are not around. If you show that you are an accepting person they will feel much more comfortable around you and like you a lot more for it.

23) Ask Questions!

Asking genuine questions will lead to deeper conversations and show people that you have an actual interest in them as a person. Don’t make the conversation all about yourself, ask some good questions and you will find so much more beauty in the people around you.

24) Acknowledge Everyone!

When you are walking down the street, nod at people and smile at them. Ask your cashiers how their day is going. Acknowledge as many people as you can and everyone will like you more. After a while of doing this, you will become more confident and you will naturally radiate a positive, open energy.

25) End on Good Terms!

The first impression you make on someone, and the last impression you make before leaving are important. When you are done talking with someone, take the time to tell them that you enjoyed the conversation.

This will put the law of state transference into effect and they will probably say that they enjoyed talking to you as well. This is a compliment, a sharing of mutual enjoyment, and a great way to leave a good impression for next time.

Well, those are my tips.

I still feel like that weird kid sometimes, but I try to follow these tips so that I can have the best possible relationships with everyone around me because you know what?

We all have weird people inside of us who just want to be liked.

I like you, and I hope you like me too!

What Video Games Taught Me That School Didn’t

I never enjoyed school.

I felt that most of what I was being taught was useless, I couldn’t pay attention and I didn’t preform very well.

In middle school I was so distracted that the teacher decided to have a meeting with my mother. She came up with the idea of giving me some play-doh that I could play with, along with a tape recorder to record the lessons so that I wouldn’t distract the other kids.

But there was something that could keep my attention.

Video Games

I loved the game Halo 2. It was a futuristic war game that involved team work, skill, strategy and many other aspects. I would login online every day to play this game for hours.

I think I missed almost all of grade 9 because of this game.
But, I learned things that I didn’t learn in school.

Only Passion Leads To Motivation

Doctors told me I had A.D.D., teachers said that I couldn’t learn and my mom told me that I never listened.

So why was it that I focused so intently when I played this game.
Because I was Passionate.

I hated school, so I didn’t try. I loved video games, so I put my heart into it.

This taught me at a young age that you had better pursue things you feel passionately about, or you will never reach any level of mastery.

Every day when I woke up I wanted to keep playing, and keep getting better. These days I wake up and the only thing I can think about is helping people conquer their obstacles.

I could have easily given in to pressure and gone to university. Maybe I would have even found a good job and made good money.
But I wouldn’t reach my full potential if I didn’t feel the passion.

Learn From The Best, Play Out Of Your League

The reason I became so good at this game was because I always searched for the best players I could find and tried to learn from them.

If someone beat me in a game, I didn’t complain or make excuses. I messaged that person and asked them to play me again and criticize my weaknesses.

If you surround yourself with people who are not as talented as you, it might boost your ego, but it won’t help you reach your potential.

When the people around you are on another level compared to you, your skills and knowledge will skyrocket.

Check your ego at the door and play with the best.

Work Ethic Beats Talent

I had a friend in this game, his name was Dustin.

I was always better than him, but he had determination that would impress Olympic athletes.

We would play games with each other one-on-one and I would win every time, but he never complained and never wanted to stop practicing.

One day his school had a lock down drill and he was stuck in class for hours with nothing to do. So what did he decide to spend this extra time on?

He got out a pen and paper, and started plotting. He thought back to all of our games, looking for commonalities and patterns to exploit. He spent literally three hours sketching and contemplating.

The next day we loaded up a game of one-on-one as always, but this time he won, again and again.

I was naturally talented, but he put in more effort so he beat me.

Whenever I worry about my abilities—seeing all of these people who are so much more talented than I am—I think of this story. It reminds that no matter how much talent I have, it’s the effort that counts.

I’m not trying to say that school isn’t important, or that it doesn’t teach you anything, or even that video games will teach you more.

I believe that we can learn lessons from every experience. Video games taught me teamwork, patience, work ethic, humility and much more.

School wasn’t the right environment for me to learn, so maybe it’s good that the teacher gave me play-doh and separated me.

I was learning on my own time anyway.
*pew pew, bang bang bang, BOOM*

How To Push Through Obstacles

When I moved out of my parents house this year, it was a scary process. My end goal was to live on my own and start to manage my own life, but every step of the way I faced obstacles I didn’t anticipate.

It had to be in our budget, it had to allow pets and it had to be close enough to all three of our work places.

After painstaking efforts to find somewhere that met all the criteria we had to gather all of our information and convince the landlords that we were the best tenants.

Finally we got the place and moved in, I thought it was all sunshine from there.

But boy was I wrong.

We had trouble getting the internet working, paying bills for the first time, figuring out groceries and a hundred other obstacles. To this day at least one house related obstacle pops up per week.

Right now, here at 2HelpfulGuys, we are in the middle of writing a book. I can already imagine the hundreds of hurdles that we are going to have to conquer.

Nothing you do will ever come without an obstacle or two so here are my tips to help you push through them and accomplish your goals.

Obstacles are a part of life.

The first thing that will help you push through these pesky obstacles is realizing that obstacles are unavoidable.

They are going to pop up, you can’t stop it. Even if you anticipate as many obstacles as you can, you are still going to run into a few nasty surprises along the way.

For your own sanity, it’s best that you become friends with obstacles.

Use obstacles to help you improve.

By definition an obstacle will help you improve and grow. If you didn’t need to grow to get past the obstacle, then it wouldn’t be an obstacle. It would just be another walk in the park.

When you realize that every obstacle matures your abilities and your drive, you will begin to become excited to face them.

Relish the opportunity to conquer something. It will only lead to more victories.

Break down your obstacles.

When you first encounter an obstacle it is almost always daunting. When you see a mountain from far away you think to yourself “It must be impossible to climb to the top! Look how high it is!”

But when you get closer you start to see the individual paths you can hike. You see it broken down into details that are easier to conquer one by one.

Do this with every obstacle you face. Break it down into small bite size pieces and start chewing.

Never give up.

Some people say Edison tried up to ten thousand different prototypes for the light bulb. Even though the first nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine didn’t work, he refuse to say that he ever failed.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
-Thomas Edison

This is the way you need to think. Every time you try something that doesn’t work you are getting closer to finding what does work.

I’ve learned that nothing you try will ever work the first time. Or maybe you’re lucky and you can get a hole in one.
I never can.

Learning to be okay with being wrong is the most important skill you will ever gain.

Keep being wrong until you find what is right. Just make sure you don’t give up.

As always, I’ll see you next Friday.

With Love,
Steven Farquharson, 2HelpfulGuys

A little boy who gave me hope

“Hope. Sometimes It’s all that you have.
When you have nothing else, if you have it, you have everything.”

The memories are hazy.

I was laying in my hospital bed. God only knows how long I had been hooked up to this IV.

The procedure usually takes six to eight hours, but because of a mistake the hospital made we were now somewhere past the twenty four hour mark.

I hated this hospital, every time I came here something bad happened. I would always beg my mom to take me to a different hospital but we couldn’t drive all the way to Toronto every time I had to get a transfusion.

I was eight years old.

This was about a year after I was diagnosed with my blood disorder. We made trips to the hospital at least two times a week. It was a very dark point in my life, I felt like I had no hope.

Every time we would talk to the specialists they would throw around the idea of removing my spleen, there was a 50% chance that would put me in remission.

I would have to take pills for the rest of my life. Even at the age of eight I knew that was an obligation I would have a hard time sticking to.

So we tried other things.

We tried natural remedies, a disgusting drink with chunks of something that would have me gagging every time I had to take it.

They put me on pills that made me gain weight and have uncontrollable mood swings. I once broke down into tears while I was watching Sunday morning cartoons.

Countless needles and a year later here I was, laying in this bed.

The worst part was the frustration of being trapped.

There was a needle in my left hand with a board taped to my arm to stop it from moving.

I was attached to a pole on wheels that held all the equipment.
Even going to the bathroom was near impossible.

But something happened that day that has affected me deeply ever since.

A little boy and his mom approached my bed.

The boy was younger than me, maybe five or six. His mom said something like “My son saw that you are sad, and he wanted to give you this.”

He handed me a teddy bear.

I don’t remember what the boy or his mom looked like. I don’t remember their voices, the expressions on their face, or much at all really. But I remember that I felt truly happy when he gave me this gift.

I’m not going to say after this incident it was all rainbows and sunshine, but it gave me something intangible. I’m not even sure what word to use. Call it hope, courage, faith, the feeling of someone caring.

All I know is after that incident, I would find myself seeing things in a new light. Instead of saying “It’s hopeless” I would say “If that little boy can be brave, why can’t I?”

Sometimes I still feel like my eight year old self.

Except now I lay in my own bed. There is no needle in my hand or board strapped to my arm. Instead I am trapped by my fears, anxieties, emotions and worries.

But I still have that teddy bear from fifteen years ago. Every once and while I look at it and think to myself.
“If that little boy could, why can’t I?”

He still gets a chill spot in my bed after 15 years. ILY little buddy.

That little voice in your head

I have a little voice in my head.

No, I’m not crazy. I think most of us have this voice. Usually it’s referred to as your conscience.

It’s the part of you that knows when you are doing something against your moral code.

In the past I have ignored this voice of reason for months, even years on end.

I thought that it was just one side to the story and that the other parts of me, desires and temptations, also had my best interests at heart.

I have never been good at practicing moderation.

I have trouble balancing things. I’ve always been an all or nothing guy.

This can become a serious problem when you completely shut out your conscience and only listen to your desires.

Behaving this way created a lot of drama in my personal life and I have lost a lot of respect for myself in the past.

The consequences are still tangible in my life to this day.

At the end of the day, you have no one to answer to but yourself.

There is no point in living by anyone else’s moral code.

Their voice won’t be the one that keeps you up at night.
It will be that little voice in your head.

You will have to listen to this voice no matter what. At first it will be warning you, although it becomes much deeper when it is saying “I told you so.”

Don’t worry about someone else’s opinion of you.

When you are making decisions don’t worry whether this person or that person will judge you for it.

As long as you are doing something that you can be proud of, that is all that matters.

At some point you’re going to make decisions that upset people around you.

If it is something you need to do, just make sure you can live with it. That voice can change from a warning to a deep regret faster than we might realize.

The warning can be heeded and avoided. A regret can’t be undone.

As long as you live within your own moral code that little voice can protect you, rather than spurn you.

I never used to listen to that little voice, and I ended up walking right into a heap of trouble. Now I take it’s advice more often, and I have a much easier time sleeping at night.

“A clear conscience is the greatest armor.”
-Chinese Proverb