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’s studied over 125 thousand 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.

I am so excited to be here today, Marie.

So I also wanna 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?

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.

Sally, that’s amazing and I can already hear people in the audience asking this question,

like, you know, “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?

On the day that you were born, you already had this innate fascination advantage. And

yours is gonna be different than anybody else’s, but once you understand that, once you...

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.

Mm! I absolutely love that. So let’s start, I know you’ve got 6 tips for all of us to

be more fascinating, so where do we begin?

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 7 different

ways to fascinate. Power, passion, mystique, prestige, alarm, rebellion, and trust. Different

people use different triggers in the way in which they communicate. But your personality,

like all personalities, we all use 2 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, our most

naturally persuasive.

Right. So I know that I’ve actually done your test and many people on my team have

and many people in our community have as well. So let’s talk more about that, you know,

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?

We all grew up understanding that we needed to know how we see the world. I mean, of course,

this is psychology, this is... it’s... we think this is the most important thing. But

if we really wanna stand out, if we really wanna 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, “Let’s ask a different question. Let’s ask how other people respond to you,

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?

I also know you’ve talked about this concept, which is kind of new, called the Fascination

Halo. What does that mean?

When you communicate, you exude certain traits. You... 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 queues

in other people, we just don't consciously realize it. And so if you understand the way

the queues 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.

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?

Right. Ok, so you know a little bit about mine, so do you wanna share what my unique

advantage...?

I do because we’ve... 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 you connect very easily, but you also raise standards. You’re emotionally

savvy, you’re very... you very quickly see social queues, you’re stylish and you like

to visually represent yourself. That’s what we know about all talent.

Yes.

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 gonna 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 your

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.

I would die.

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 and in a busy

and crowded world, what is the best and highest use of our personality?

So if you at home are experiencing anything like what I’m experiencing right now, you’re

kind of like dumbfounded and like, “Sally, just talk to me. I just wanna listen to you.

Keep giving it to me, woman.” This is the state of fascination. Am I right?

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.

Right.

It’s this kind of communication that you can achieve if you understand what your core

personality advantage is.

Right. And, you know, one of the other things you talk about is provoking a strong emotional

response and, you know, 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 wanna 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.

When the brain experiences emotion, it has a very specific way of remembering it, it

makes us think and listen and act and connect. It’s... this is different than information.

You can forget information, but you’re never gonna forget emotion. And so if you wanna

be unforgettable one of the best things that you can do is to create a strong and immediate

emotional response. For example, when you write your emails, Marie, I love getting your

emails. I open them up and I just wanna 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... or, think of it almost as like little mental hooks that you’re giving to

your reader. So in the same way, for all of us, we... 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.

So speaking of being unforgettable, you know, 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,

and your career, around your personality that that’s really the best thing that we can

do.” So let’s dive into that a little bit more.

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.

Yes.

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 in naturally succeeding.

You know, this is so interesting because I remember a couple years back thinking about,

like, 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, you know, like, “Oh, this isn’t professional,” or, “You’re a little

bit on the fringe,” like, “You shouldn't be doing this.” And it’s so wild because

sometimes I’ll get tweets or I’ll get, you know, email notes or messages on Facebook

of people saying, “Thank you for making me laugh today.” You know, “Thank you

for not taking yourself so seriously,” and it’s always been those little reminders

that kind of give me a little more fuel to think, “Ok, I’m not totally nuts for just

being myself.” So I really resonate with what you just shared.

I think for a lot of us, we want so much to be liked...

Yeah.

That we boil ourselves down to this grey, watery mush.

Yes.

If you’re trying to create messages for everybody, you end up speaking to nobody.

That’s right.

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.

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 gonna get

people that say nasty things, you know, and especially in the world of the internet, you

know, and our videos are on YouTube and that’s... while there’s, you know, millions if not

billions of amazing and gorgeous, wonderful, heart centered people, you know, there can

be a small pool of folks who are just venomous and say the most horrific things that can

just get you kind of right in the gut. And I know that over the years, you know, I’ve

developed more of a thicker skin, but when someone’s first starting out, you know,

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 kind of need to hear more of.

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 gonna hire you and now we’re not going to.”

Yes.

And, you know what? That’s fine. What a great screener.

Yeah.

I shouldn’t be working with them anyway.

Right.

I’m The Catalyst. I mean, The Catalyst comes out big and wants to play and wants to create

something. We’re not there to toe the line and follow protocol.

Right.

So it’s really... 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.”

Yeah and, you know, it speaks really well too because not so long ago when I was on

Oprah, I remember a couple years back, you know, Oprah’s been someone that’s been

on my list for a long time. I love and admire her. And I remember thinking to myself sometimes

I’m like, “Wow, my brand is not, like, serious enough to get the attention of someone

like Oprah because it feels a little, again, a little, like, on the fringe or a little,

you know, I’m a little quirky or whatever.” And it was really awesome, to be honest with