Some might think that the task of making someone instantly like you is a difficult one with many variables and challenges. I look at it in much more simple terms.

It might take you forever to find the right clothes or hairstyle or anything else that might make you more physically attractive. It might take you forever to learn specific words or phrases that people might attach them selves to and like you because of. It might take you forever to read book after book or article after article about what makes someone desirable or not. It might take lots of practice to implement any of the techniques that you learned from those books, only to sometimes come to the conclusion that you’re not that likable, or that everybody can’t like everyone, or that some people are just more likable than others. To me, however, armed with the knowledge that no one remembers what you say, they may hardly remember what you look like, but they will always remember how you make them feel, gives me an insight into a realm of likability that other people are still confused by.

The idea that no one remembers what you say is a good place to start. Words do not make people like you. So spending ridiculous amounts of time trying to figure out the specific words that might make someone care, would just be a huge waste of time. The statistics, and my own practice for over 30 years working with singers and speakers, have certainly proven that the words you use hardly matter at all. So let’s not spend anymore time hunting for the right words to make people like you.

They won’t remember the way you look, because most people don’t have that kind of memory. You might be wearing some crazy red shirt that sparks their memory. But they’ll never remember whether you combed your hair on the left side or the right side or if you were wearing blue eye shadow or green eye shadow or so many other things about your physical appearance that you may have focused on that day when you got dressed for success. Most physical things are harder to remember is specificity. We might remember that person had a nice smile, or that person didn’t have any hair, but in general we don’t remember that much about the exact physical details of someone, and then use that as an important reason to like them or not. We might think, “Wow isn’t that person beautiful”, or “That person is my type, and maybe I could like them”. But most of us are not so shallow to think that appearance is a direct link to whether we like that person or not, we separate “We like the way that person looks”, from “We like the person”.

So words and looks or not the fastest way to make someone like you, so what is the most direct pipeline to likability? It happens to be the way you make them feel, because they will remember that. And how is the fastest and most reliable way to make someone feel something when they meet you? By using the sounds that come out of your mouth. Let me get more specific.

I realize there are many reasons why we might like one person over another, but in general, we like to be around happy people. When we sense happiness we are swept up in the energy that seems positive, strengthening, joyful, engaging, and fun. Happiness is most certainly contagious. When you meet someone who is smiling, laughing, joyful, and exuding elements of happiness, their energy absolutely permeates into your body and consciousness and has every chance of changing your emotions at that particular moment, from less than happy to absolutely happy.

When you meet someone who is genuinely happy and exuding that emotion, you start by being happy for that person, reacting to the energy that they are emitting. But very soon after, in seconds, as you’re feeling good for the person who is happy, your mood starts to move to being directly happy as well, that’s the contagious part of happy energy. When someone’s laughing, it makes you want to laugh. When someone is smiling, it makes you want to smile. When someone’s face is glowing with joyousness, your facial expressions change when you’re with them and engaged in conversation.

So how did you know they were happy? What sounds where they making, aside from the words, that convinced you immediately that they were truly full of happiness? One of the sounds they were creating was increased volume. When someone is happy they speak louder.  Not the kind of louder that triggers the feeling of anger, but the kind of louder that comes from fullness and richness and purpose and joy. That kind of loud is filled with air exiting the body, and the combination of that air and the vocal cords vibrating more fully, create a thick, rich, beautiful sound where the volume is anything but angry, it is most certainly the sound of happy.

I’ve often mentioned that you can’t just increase your volume and showcase happy. You have to mix volume and melody together at the same time to be perceived as happy. So as my volume increases I need to also increase my Melody, going high and low like any great song would. Interestingly enough, most happy songs are songs that have a lot of higher notes, because higher pitches do create more energetic, joyful emotion. For those of you that have heard me speak or read any of the things that I publish, you know that I believe singing and speaking are basically the same thing, that the brain doesn’t differentiate between singing and speaking, because we use the same vocal cords and the same airstream to do both. So the way I teach people to speak creates the same emotions and feelings, and the same statistics apply.

There was a recent article in Time.com that talks about how

singing /speaking releases chemicals in the brain that alleviate depression and makes you happy. Here’s a little section of it:

The elation from singing may come from endorphins, a hormone released by singing, which is associated with feelings of pleasure.  Or it might be from oxytocin, another hormone released during singing, which has been found to alleviate anxiety and stress. Oxytocin also enhances feelings of trust and bonding, which may explain why still more studies have found that singing lessens feelings of depression and loneliness. A very recent study even attempts to make the case that “music evolved as a tool of social living,” and that the pleasure that comes from singing together is our evolutionary reward for coming together cooperatively, instead of hiding alone, every cave-dweller for him or herself.

So if singing and speaking correctly actually makes you happy, it can make the people around you also feel happy, and that’s the fastest way I know to have them decide they like you. We live in a mirror culture. We want to surround ourselves with people like us. If we can display happy, others will easily want to join that group and stay there. That’s a direct link to being LIKED.

The opposite is also true. How many times have you met someone who has low volume, who’s melodies sound depressing? When you hear people with low voices and no melody, who clearly sound unhappy, it’s impossible not to get swept up in that negative emotion and feel unhappy as well. So the fastest way to make someone like you, is to come across happy, because they want to share that emotion and be happy themselves. And the fastest way to make someone not like you, is to come across as unhappy, because they don’t want to spend one more second feeling to sad themselves, and more unhappy than they need to feel.

So if you have any desire to learn how to instantly make someone else like you, you need to start with the sounds that are coming out of your mouth, and realize which ones are actually the happy ones. Are you using enough melody? Is your melody going up when you get to commas and periods or staying on the same note? Are you using low pitches when you speak or higher ones? Because I just explained how the higher pitches can stimulate people’s emotions and release chemicals into the brain that make them physically and emotionally happy, and then like you more. Are you using volume without using more melody? If so, then your volume is potentially being perceived as angry, and you being angry at them will absolutely not make them like you. However, if you’re matching the right amount of volume and melody, and your physicality is also showcasing happy, you have a smile, your eyebrows are lifted, there’s a lot of energy exuding from your body, your hands are not in your pockets, and your eyes are not droopy and sad, then people will be drawn to you and your energy, feel something special, and instantly like you.

Record yourself with more volume and melody. Practice this until you like the way it sounds, and it makes you feel happy. When you can get there, and showcase those sounds to everyone you communicate with, they will LIKE YOU.