Develop Your Likable Character

When you’re integrating with other people and are on track to become an influencer in the world today, you must refine your story and establish your persona as a character that people can relate to and is likable. So, how do you develop your likable character?

While I caution against celebrity, we can look at some who have gotten this part down pat, and that’s why we love people like Jimmy Fallon, Jennifer Aniston, Ed Sheeran, Ellen DeGeneres, LeBron James, Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Tyra Banks, Dave Chappelle, Oprah Winfrey, Dwayne Johnson, Taylor Swift, George Clooney, and Lady Gaga.  They have done the work of developing their likable character and sticking to it. We feel like we know them, who they are, and can even anticipate how they might respond in certain circumstances.

As you already know, you only have a limited amount of time to expose yourself to others. You already have your elevator pitch and 90-second Life Story. Now we’re going to the next level and you’re going to craft your likable character.

This will answer the question: Who Are You? In a big way.

You are going to create a story about yourself, not unlike you might about a character in your book, and once you’ve done this, you must stick to your script. You might be modifying your elevator pitch and 90-minute story to fit your likable character.

This is your backstory. Basically, where you’ve come from and how you’ve become the persona that you are today.

This is a process that can change over time, but today, we are going to get you to settle into this persona that you are going to prepare for yourself today. When you get challenged in an interview or online, take a second to review before you respond to a question or circumstance and think, according to your story,

“What would I do?”

The “I” in the identity that you create for yourself today. Keeping your exposure consistent to your likable character is worth so much and this consistency helps to solidify your connection to your new clients and friends.

This will also help you identify the voice, vocabulary, and tone of what you will say and how you will say it in blogs, books, interviews, and media.

To connect to your customer avatar, it would be helpful to be able to say, “I used to be just like you.”

I first learned about the likable character from Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, then Frank Kern, and now Russell Brunson seems to have picked up the gauntlet in his book, Dot com Secrets, and is helping entrepreneurs embrace this tried-and-true method of creating a likable character.

To get you going here is step-by-step layout that will help you develop your likable character.

Your Story

This is where you relate a personal story that expresses how you, the hero of your story, were able to get from where you were to where you are today. This is the element that attaches you to your potential clients and friends that includes the “I was just like you,” piece. This story should inspire others and give them hope that they can have a better life by following you.

Lessons

Find ways to relate key experiences and lessons you have learned throughout your hero’s story by creating mini-lessons or story-like parables that you can easily tell your audience and they can easily understand and connect with what you are trying to relate. This will give them ways to better retain the key elements, and it will make it easier for them to tell others. Your parables should be based on your experience, and priceless insights, that helped you overcome challenges that you faced. Telling these stories will help your people achieve the results they desire faster and easier.

Share Your Weaknesses

Make sure that you convey plenty of examples of you not being perfect. Confidently relating your character flaws will help people identify with you. Why? Because they aren’t perfect either. Your openness, honesty, transparency, and vulnerability will draw people who also share similar weaknesses to you, and it makes you appear more trustworthy.

This is counterintuitive for most people because they do not want to put their weaknesses out front but remember that the big picture is your being able to connect and relate to your audience, so the more vulnerable you are willing to be the more connection and influence you will be able to have while identifying with your people.

Black and White

You must find ways to polarize elements of your story that either attracts or offends people. I am a super tolerant person, so this is the hardest part of the process for me. The most effective stories have massive polarization.

The upside is that the people who agree with your never-say-die this-is-the-way-it-is like-it-or-not point of view, will immediately love you and what you’re saying. The downside to being black and white is that people who disagree with such a singular perspective will hate you, and many of them will aggressively oppose you online. Don’t take it personally.

Again, you must be more focused on being able to help as many people as possible with the least amount of effort. Your message can be far more powerful, and you’ll be able to help more people by being black and white, so be willing to endure (and ignore) the naysayers while you’re reaching for your highest good.

Four Identities

To create your own persona, pick one of the four basic identities to represent who you are to your audience.

1 The Leader

The leader is the type of person who gathers a group of people and encourages them to believe or think a certain way and can encourage them to influence others likewise.

2 The Adventurer

The adventurer is an explorative trendsetter who is bold enough to try new things in his or her space. Seeing things from unconventional perspectives and creating counter-intuitive strategies that are extremely effective when implemented. The adventurer helps create results, customer satisfaction, and success creatively.

3 The Reporter

This is the inquisitive seeker of truth who seeks out professionals in the field who can share their stories from their perspective. Sharing this information with your audience makes you a trusted and valuable source of information.

Your audience feels that they need the data that you are providing to help them achieve their goals or have a better life.

4 The Reluctant Hero

Maybe you’re a very private person, reserved and shy, but you’re so moved by your particular area of expertise that, even though you were resistant, you could not refuse the call to action to help others for the greater good.

You have strong feelings about your mission, and they are so compelling that they will see you past your inability to feel ultimately confident about going about the work necessary to help others who really need what you have to offer.

Pick a Story Theme

A story theme will be the framework for how you will relate your message to your audience in the best way possible. Your story may include data, but your story theme will communicate a particular feeling that your audience can easily identify with. This is the space where you will include details of your persona.

1 Loss and Redemption

This is the rags-to-riches theme, where you relate your story of transformation. You were at this lower state of being and had resigned yourself to living out this mediocre lifestyle or even resigned yourself to a life of trauma and abuse but look at you now. You are in a far better place, and you can help others achieve the same.

2 Us vs. Them

This is the premise from which movements are made as like-minded people ban together in opposition to preconceived ideas, situations, circumstances, or people in powerful positions, in an effort to make a stand and take the high road. This highly polarizing framework is very effective in influencing others to take action independently as they build confidence as a group.

3 Before and After

This was me before my massive transformation, this is me now. This is how I did it. You can do this, too.

4 It’s a Miracle!

These results would have never been realized had it not been for this miraculous discovery that made it all possible. Note that the its-a-miracle strategy is best portrayed by a persona who shares a particular pain point with the audience which has been overcome thanks to the “miracle.”

5 Secret Exposed

The desired result, whatever it is, is easily obtained “once you know the secret.” The Leader persona is often the best presenter for the secret(s)-exposed framework.

Supporting Your Credibility

No matter what you are presenting or how you try to present it, you will need methods to support your credibility. Of course, the first order of business is to be recognized as the,

Undeniable Expert in Your Field

If you’ve done the work to become the expert in your field, then when people look you up, they will feel more confident in aligning with your message and/or mission. Even so, there is little more impactful than,

Third-person Testimonials

The impact of social proof of your impact on the lives of others is irresistible and compelling. If you can get people to sing your praises for what you do on social media, this will propel what you are trying to accomplish greatly.

Who Are You Known As?

You owe yourself the honor of seeing that you are represented in the world in a way that is in accordance with how you would like to be known and/or remembered. So, who are you known as?

You know who you are. You know how you think, what’s important to you, what makes your heart sing, etc.… but are you presenting yourself in such a way, so others can see you for who you are?

More often than not, we are oblivious to how others perceive the public image we project of ourselves.

Nowadays, we have these huge social media billboards posted all over the Internet. You may think of yourself as being a certain kind of person, but what do you look like on the World Wide Web?

In a worst-case scenario, since nearly no one knows it will come, how would you be seen by those who looked you up online after hearing that you had died in an accident today? Chances are, no one has your password, so your social media life would be frozen in time at the sound of your flatline.

Beeeeeeeeep.

Looking at some random people’s social media, you could safely assume that this person would be known as someone who hates the President. This person believes in aliens. Here’s an avid conspiracy theorist. This person falls in love with a different person every month and vacillates between hating and loving prospective lovers.

Here’s a sarcastic critic of just about everyone and everything. Here’s somebody who relentlessly posts shameless selfies. This guy never wears a shirt and has pineapple-hair. This person is clearly always in a drunken stupor, and here’s the world’s biggest fan of marijuana.

I had a friend who was clearly identified as a thrill seeker, so it was no surprise when he was involved in a fatal accident. In his case, his social media was an accurate representation of his tendency to tempt fate. But there was so much more to him that those of us who knew him well saw in him which was not represented on the Internet.

If your ability to post on social media was curtailed by your ability to live, how would you be remembered? It might be worth taking a look at. Maybe it’s time to post something congruent with how you might like to be remembered?

And that’s just your virtual personality. What about in real life?

In real life, at school, work, hanging with friends, we often represent ourselves in one way, when the identity of our authentic self is quite different. We might hide our sensitive side, or present ourselves as bolder, to either prevent ourselves from being vulnerable or to advance our position among peers or coworkers.

You are far more than people might think who you are or what you do.

Chances are, even your family members may not know your best attributes. What you believe,

Maybe it’s time to take a look at how you are perceived in the community. Ask friends and coworkers whom you can trust how they see you. Do they see you the way you want to be seen?

Who are you? Today might be a good take to take a look at your personal brand.

Is It Time to Rebrand?

Holistic entrepreneurs are not only doing great work in the world, they are also cognizant of their own spiritual wellness. This is why I am blessed to be surrounding myself with creative triunistic (body/mind/spirit) conscious individuals who are ever evolving and expanding.

As my clients evolve, likewise their lives and their business environments change and adaptation is necessary to maintain congruency with the ongoing metamorphosis.
It becomes necessary to contemplate changing your brand (the representation of who you are and what you do) to embrace and harness the power of your expansion to allow further opportunities and expansion.

Your brand is not only what you say it is, it is what people think about you when they hear your name or the name of your business. If not tended to, your brand can be very weak. Given the proper attention people will recognize the impression you desire to communicate when your name comes to mind. It is a powerful but delicate balancing act.

We love doing the things we love, that is why we do what we do, but as we evolve those things we love – those things we are deeply passionate about – are also subject to change.

Upon conception of your foray into the public medium, you brand yourself initially as you see yourself and like to represent who you are and what you do to others. Often this is apparent when you first meet and/or greet someone, exchange pleasantries and introduce yourself. What you say in the first 30 seconds establishes your brand.

It makes sense that as you change, so should the way you introduce yourself to others (your brand).

So how do you establish who you are and what you do?

Periodically checking with your inner self and query where your passions are and compare them to where you were. Ask yourself is my brand (the way I have been representing/introducing myself) an adequate representation of where I am today?

If not, it may be time to revisit how you represent yourself to others and consider rebranding.

Making these changes as often as necessary (there are no hard and fast rules about when, only when you recognize you have changed enough to communicate the adjustments to others) will open doors and invite further expansion of your efficacy in the community and the world at large.

If you’re considering that it is time for a personal or professional review, ask yourself these questions,

Where did I come from?
How did I get here?
What offerings, tools, skills and special abilities do I have?
What was I most enthusiastic about in the past?
What makes my heart sing today?
Is something calling me, beckoning me to bring it forth?
Can I accept the challenge to expand who I am or what I do?
If so, what would that look like?
Can including this vision in my brand further my evolution or expansion?

The answers to these and other questions that might come to mind will help you determine whether it is time to make adjustments to your brand.

Are you ready?