Likeability to Love-ability

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com

Why do people like you?
Why is being liked so important?
Tim Sanders, author of The Likeability Factor, extensively researched being liked.
He found it is very important to have qualities of being liked as the nature of our society is changing.

We are moving from short-term to long-term in focus, functioning more interdependently and becoming less individualistic. It is essential to cultivate quality relationships, and be versed in dealing with a variety of relationships. In making it for the long haul, we need many believers from various influences around us in the process.

To be likable is the key ingredient to meet the new definitions of success... we want freedom to chart our course in life as we desire. If your life has inconsistencies, people will see or find out and your likeability will go down the tubes.

People tend to believe what they want to believe and they believe you more if they like you. Life changes, many variables now come into play that affect our lives. Just being the best or knowing the right people does not cut it.

The deciding factor on whether we leap the moon or live in gloom is our likeability.

What builds likeability?
Sanders outlines four aspects to likeability. When you have all four, people like you a lot and become invaluable partners with you in anything... friends, marriage, business pursuits, organizations, socially.... wherever interactions and relationships with people are essentially important. And with today's society which is intertwined, it is everywhere in everything.

Today into tomorrow-relationships with people is the essential factor... the Likeability Factor.

The four ingredients of likeability…
1. Friendliness. When we show "happy expressions" as we run into, pass or meet people. People like those who they feel like them. When you welcome people into your emotional space, receive them positively, they see this as friendly.

2. Relevance. Then when you connect, find common ground, the likeability factor continues its advance. Relevance "is the extent to which the other person connects to your life's interests, wants, and needs." Relevance has three levels, or degree's... contact, mutual interest and value. Sanders found a study that students who sat close to each other in school classes liked each other more.

3. Empathy. "When you see a person as friendly and relevant, then you wonder, consciously or unconsciously, if the person understands you." Empathy, goes beyond knowing or sympathy. It wants to know why and relates "why" he feels that way. By sharing a common experience, it creates a feeling of understanding.

4. Realness. If a person is friendly, relevant, expresses empathy toward you, the last component to be likeable is realness. Is the person genuine, truthful, accurate, authentic. When we see inconsistencies in realness, likeability takes a nose dive. The other factors lose significance and our connection to that person fades. Being friendly, saying I like you with a smile voice, connecting with a person in some way, pursuing understanding the person and being honest to who you are... result in people really liking you.

If a person starts out likable and then just one of the four factors begin to change... not as friendly acting, change of interests, not as understanding, or not honest or real... likeability begins to dissolve.

Sanders goes on in The Likeability Factor to lead you through processes that will increase your likeability factor. A self-assessment test is also included in the back of the book. Sanders is a contemporary expression of Dale Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Sanders website is... http://timsanders.com/

Love takes us a step up from likeability.
“…continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God—for God is love.(1 John 4:7-8)

And the Spirit of God lives in you. (1 John 2:27)

In What Happens When We Die, they pointed out that those with near death experiences come back to life with a strong sense of kindness and service in their lives after the experience. Most said they had met Spiritual beings and that love was the prominent characteristic of the experience. The sense of love overwhelmed them.

When Spirit (Love) dominates our existence, especially when not manufactured by us, we love as the flow of Spirit continues constantly through us. We live and respond with rekindled kindness in all things. We are innately driven in a Spirit of Service... to serve others in need with love that is a natural part of our being.

When Spirit controls,
as the presence of us,
love is the flow that comes through us.

The Apostle John said that if we do not love our neighbors, we do not know God. (1 John 4)

God is love. God is Spirit.
When we allow Spirit to reside in us we love because that is the character of Spirit. Love dominates our existence. To love is more than a mandate, it is a characteristic of existence. It is who we are, we are naturally love... when in Spirit.

When Spirit is allowed to exist in us, even when a person is not friendly, we love them;
when person's life is not relevant to ours, we love them;
when someone even shows little interest or cares for us, we even love them,
when someone deliberately tries to deceive us, we still love them.

Love goes beyond likeability... love passes through all obstacles of relationship, acquainting, and getting along with others. Love continues to be kind, and serves regardless of how it is treated.

In any business, those who love are the best at customer service.They remain kind, patient, understanding even when they deal with someone who is not kind, patient or agreeable. Love is a fire that melts hostility and makes the way for forging relationships even when circumstances do not promote likeability.

Rest, flow and maintain a center of love in Spirit. You will always be likable and begin nurturing likeability to others who are not likable.

Love is an active Power Force that heals, builds and creates a platform for miracles to happen in life and in business.