How To Be Fascinating with Sally Hogshead

Marie Forleo: Hey, it's Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. And today I've got a question for you. Have you ever wondered why you're captivated by some people and not others? Or perhaps what makes you remember one business or brand and completely forget the rest? In other words, what is it that makes something or someone fascinating? And how can you be more fascinating in your personal and your professional life? My guest today has the answer. Sally is the CEO and founder of Fascinate Inc. Her company studies what makes you most fascinating. She studied over 125,000 people, and her research has been published in 14 languages, but this isn't just a usual personality test like Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder. She doesn't measure how you see the world. She measures how the world sees you. Sally, thank you so much for being here today on MarieTV.

Sally Hogshead: I am so excited to be here today, Marie.

Marie Forleo: So I also want to say that you are the author of a fantastic book, Fascinate. And if you have not read this book, y'all need to get it and read it right now because it is amazing. So, Sally this is one of my favorite topics. Teaching people how to become more fascinating and you are honestly the world's expert at it. So tell us a little bit about what this means. How are we to become more fascinating?

Sally Hogshead: Well, first let's talk about what is fascination itself. Fascination is a state of intense emotional focus. So when you fascinate somebody, they're just thinking about you. They're not distracted. They're not thinking about their next meeting. They're totally captivated by your message. And this is really important for us as entrepreneurs because it's in these moments that we can really communicate and connect and get people to care about what we have to say.

Marie Forleo: Sally, that's amazing. I can already hear people in the audience asking this question, am I either born with the it factor or can I actually learn to become more fascinating? What do you say to someone who's asking that question?

Sally Hogshead: On the day that you were born, you already had this innate fascination advantage and yours is going to be different than anybody else's. But once you understand that, once you can apply it and amplify it, this is when you can really earn people's attention. You don't learn how to be fascinating. You unlearn how to be boring.

Marie Forleo: I absolutely love that. So let's start. I know you've got six tips for all of us to be more fascinating. So where do we begin?

Sally Hogshead: Well, first of all, the main thing to understand is that you already are fascinating. The point is, how do you communicate that? Even without realizing it, every time you walk into a room, every time you open your mouth to speak, you exude certain traits. And when you understand how the world sees you, that's when you can really start to amplify it and use it so that you can build rapport more easily in a more authentic way. There are seven different ways to fascinate. Power, passion, mystique, prestige, alarm, rebellion and trust. Different people use different triggers and the way in which they communicate. But your personality, like all personalities we all use two of these as our natural ways of communicating. And it's when we use these natural ways of communicating that we become our most influential or most naturally persuasive.

Marie Forleo: So I know that I've actually done your task and many people in my team have and many people in our community have as well. So let's talk more about that. How important it is to understand how the world sees us or how the world sees you. So tell me more about that. Why is it so important?

Sally Hogshead: We all grew up understanding that we needed to know how we see the world. This is psychology. We think this is the most important thing, but if we really want to stand out, if we really want to build a reputation and earn respect, we have to understand how the world sees us. So instead of testing and measuring how you see the world, like a traditional personality test does. I turn it around to the other side and say, well let's ask a different question. Let's ask how other people respond to you.

Sally Hogshead: What kind of first impression are you making? And then how can you use that and leverage that to grow your business around your core personality strengths.

Marie Forleo: I also know you've talked about this concept, which is kind of new called the fascination halo. What does that mean?

Sally Hogshead: When you communicate, you exude certain traits. It's almost like you radiate them. Think about it, it's almost like an aura but it's based on your core personality advantages. And so when you walk into a room, people pick up on certain traits, whether they realize it or not, unconsciously their brain is perceiving certain things about you instantly. Our brains are actually incredibly good at this, picking up on all the cues in other people. We just don't consciously realize it. And so if you understand the way the cues that people are picking up from you, then you can start to lean into that and you can own it and you can harness it and you can use it to drive your business.

Sally Hogshead: And this is really our key competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace is how does the world see us? And how can we use that to build relationships with people in a way that's authentic and totally in line with who we already are?

Marie Forleo: Okay. So you know a little bit about mine. So do you want to share what my unique advantage?

Sally Hogshead: I do because I've had the opportunity to give you the test and your result is that you are the talent. The talent uses primary passion, secondary prestige. And what that means is that you connect very easily but you also raise standards. You're emotionally savvy. You very quickly see social cues, you're stylish and you like to visually represent yourself. That's what we know all talents.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Sally Hogshead: Now my archetype, my fascination archetype is similar to yours. Mine is named the catalyst. The catalyst also has primary passion. So I like to connect, but my secondary is rebellion, which means I like creativity and change. So my key strength, my fascination halo is all around creating innovative ideas, experimental out of the box thinking. So in other words, your greatest success that you will ever achieve is going to be for you to understand that the way people see you is that you are the talent. You're emotionally expressive, you're visually oriented. And so it's important for you to put yourself in roles where people want that from you. If you were to put yourself in a professional situation in which you're success or failure was being evaluated on your ability to do nitty gritty in the weeds, detail orientation spreadsheets, you're simply not going to succeed.

Marie Forleo: I would die.

Sally Hogshead: It's not that you couldn't do it. It's just, it's not the best and highest use of your personality. And so for all of us, this is really the question in a busy and crowded world, what is the best and highest use of our personality?

Marie Forleo: So if you at home are experiencing anything like what I'm experiencing right now, you're dumbfounded and like, Sally just talk to me. I just want to listen to you, keep giving it to me woman. This is the state of fascination. Am I right?

Sally Hogshead: The neurological state of fascination. Right now, your brain is opened up. You're in a state of relaxed happiness. You're focused and in this moment I'm really able to communicate with you. And this is what we want to achieve with our loved ones, with our clients, with people that we meet, on a first date. It's this kind of communication that you can achieve if you understand what your core personality advantage is.

Marie Forleo: And one of the other things you talk about is provoking a strong emotional response. And I think that's something that I've been doing in my business since the beginning, that I was really doing it unconsciously. Or it wasn't really like a strategy that I set out and said, "Oh I want to provoke a strong emotional response". It just really is natural to who I am. So let's talk about provoking a strong emotional response for a minute.

Sally Hogshead: When the brain experiences emotion, it has a very specific way of remembering it. It makes us think and listen, and act and connect. This is different than information. You can forget information, but you're never going to forget emotion. And so if you want to be unforgettable, one of the best things that you can do is to create a strong and immediate emotional response.

Sally Hogshead: For example, when you write your emails Maria, I love getting your emails. I open them up and I just want to devour them because you use these mouthwatering adjectives and you describe these really vivid mental images. You're not reporting facts, although there always is a lot of information in your emails. You're giving me an emotional experience and that I think of it almost like little mental hooks that you're giving to your reader. So in the same way for all of, if all we do is just throw information out there, that can be forgotten or ignored. But if we get an emotional response from people, then we become unforgettable.

Marie Forleo: So speaking of being unforgettable, one of the things I've talked about for years is how powerful it is, especially in this day and age, the fact that we can really take our personalities and infuse them into our businesses or our careers, whatever we're doing in terms of livelihood. And I love that you say, "When you build your business around your career and your personality, that that's really the best thing that we can do". So let's dive into that a little bit more.

Sally Hogshead: You don't have to change who you are to become your most successful. In fact, it's the opposite. You need to become more of who you are and when you become more of who you are, it feels effortless.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Sally Hogshead: There's no energy, there's no resistance in becoming more of who you already are. So it's not a matter of trying to become successful in a role. It's a matter of choosing which roles support you and naturally succeeding.

Marie Forleo: This is so interesting because I remember couple of years back thinking about my particular take on business and personal development. And I have such a goofy personality and oftentimes a little bit of a twisted sense of humor. And I remember the thoughts in my head like, oh this isn't professional or you're a little bit on the fringe you shouldn't be doing this and it's so wild because sometimes I'll get tweets or I'll get email notes or messages on Facebook of people saying, "Thank you for making me laugh today. Thank you for not taking yourself so seriously". And it's always been those little reminders that give me a little more fuel to think, okay, I'm not totally nuts for just being myself. So I really resonate with what you just shared.

Sally Hogshead: I think for a lot of us, we want so much to be liked that we boil ourselves down to this gray watery mush.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Sally Hogshead: If you're trying to create messages for everybody, you end up speaking to nobody.

Marie Forleo: That's right.

Sally Hogshead: And in fact, I'll even take it a step further if you're not creating a negative response from somebody, you're not fascinating to anybody.

Marie Forleo: I love that you just said that because I think one of the things that can happen for us as business owners, especially in this day and age where creating content and putting messages out on a consistent basis, requires us to put ourselves out there and you're going to get people that say nasty things. And especially in the world of the internet and our videos are on YouTube and that's while there's millions, if not billions of amazing and gorgeous, wonderful heart-centered people. There can be a small pool of folks who are just venomous and say the most horrific things that can just get you right in the gut. And I know that over the years, I've developed more of a thicker skin but when someone's first starting out, a comment that's negative can really knock people on their butts for a little bit and make them question everything and think that they're doing it all wrong. So I love hearing you say that. And I think it's something that we all need to hear more of.

Sally Hogshead: It means you're doing something right. It's really important to be strategically polarizing. For example, on my website my tagline says a hogshead is a barrel that holds 62 gallons. So what's your last name smartass? And I know for a fact that there are certain clients that have literally said, "We were going to hire you and now we're not going to". And you know what, that's fine. What a great screener. I shouldn't be working with them anyway. I'm the catalyst. The catalyst comes out big and wants to play and wants to create something we're not there to tow the line and follow protocol. So it's actually great to have those screeners in your brand for your company and for your personal brand to say, I'm not for everybody but the people who love me really love me.

Marie Forleo: And it speaks really well too, because not so long ago when I was on Oprah, I remember a couple of years back, Oprah has been someone that's been on my list for a long time. I love it and admire her. And I remember thinking to myself sometimes I'm like, wow my brand is not serious enough to get the attention of someone like Oprah because it feels a little, again, a little on the fringe or I'm a little quirky or whatever. And it was really awesome to be honest with you, to be able to say, you know what, I can be fully me and still meet with and connect with some of my biggest mentors who are very different than I am, but still there's that resonance and there's that understanding. So it's just more confirmation of what you're saying.

Sally Hogshead: Can I add one more thing?

Marie Forleo: Yeah, please.

Sally Hogshead: So in my house we buy vanilla ice cream and we purposely buy vanilla ice cream. Because even though nobody loves vanilla ice cream, everybody will eat it. It's like the lowest common denominator. You can put it with anything. Businesses can be the vanilla ice cream of their category if they have a big budget. In other words, if you have the biggest budget in your category, you can be a little bit boring. You don't need people to love you. You don't need people to champion for you, but if you don't have the biggest budget, you need to be the pistachio. Pistachio is a niche flavor that not everybody loves. In fact, a lot of people hate it, but the people who love it really, really, really love it. They will drive across town for it. They'll pay more for it. They want to eat more volumes. They want to talk about it.

Sally Hogshead: The pistachio fan club waves it's flag proudly. So you can either be the vanilla or you can be the pistachio. If you don't have the biggest budget, then you need to be the most fascinating. You need to be the pistachio ice cream.

Marie Forleo: Sally, I absolutely love this conversation. I could talk to you for hours but let's wrap this up with this idea and this is one of my favorites. You say, "The world is not changed by people who sort of care". What do you mean by that?

Sally Hogshead: The world is not changed by people who sort of care. The world isn't changed by companies who sort of care. The world is changed by people who passionately, irrationally, audaciously care. And if you want people to care about you and your company, then you need to communicate your core personality advantages. And when you do, people will passionately care about you.

Marie Forleo: Sally, I could not agree more with you. And I love that point. And thank you so much for being here today with us. This was amazing.

Sally Hogshead: Thank you, Marie. I am fascinated by you and so happy to be able to be here with you.

Marie Forleo: Well this is the first of many times, I'm sure. So as always on MarieTV, what we like to do is challenge you to take all of the goodness and the insight that we talked about and put it into action. So here's our deal. Sally and I would love to hear from you in the comments below. What is the one single personality trait that you have, that you could turn up the volume with and amplify more in your business or in your life? As always the best conversations happen after the episode at marieforleo.com. So go there and leave a comment now.

Marie Forleo: Did you like this video? If so, subscribe and share it with your friends. And if you want even more great resources to create a business and life that you love, plus some personal insights from me that I only talk about in email, get your buns over to marieforleo.com and sign up for email updates. Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time on MarieTV.

Marie Forleo: Sally, that's a hot skirt.

Sally Hogshead: Do you like it?

Marie Forleo: I like it.

Sally Hogshead: It still has the price tag on it.

Marie Forleo: Good.

Sally Hogshead: Because I couldn't decide how I was going to feel about it.

Marie Forleo: Yeah, that's a really smart thing. Any weird chest hair or yes. See rogue hairs always. (Singing).

Sally Hogshead: Nice. I'm excited for this episode.