Be so interesting you cant be ignored

Be so interesting you cant be ignoredBe so interesting you cant be ignoredIn 2007, Steve Martin stopped by theCharlie Roseshow.For those who dont know, Martin got his start as a comedian, and he later built that into a career spanning across television, movies, music, and even writing. He is known for his offbeat and eccentric style.He had recently releasedBorn Standing Up, a very personal memoir and the conversation with Rose centered around how Martin first found himself in front of a stage, the relationships in his life, and the rest of his career.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreThe bewerbungsgesprch is both touching and funny, but its perhaps most fascinating when Rose asks Martin to explain the followingSomebody once stood up in the audience and asked you how to become successful, and you said thatyou have to be undeniably good at something.Martin looks at him for a second, nods a little, and then sharesWell, people always ask me how do you make it in show business, or whatever.What I always tell them, and Ive said it many years, andnobody ever takes notebecause its not the answer they wanted to hear.What they want to hear is Heres how you get an agent, heres how you write a script,...but I always say,Be sogood they cant ignore you.Simple and somewhat obvious, but also very profound.You cant fault the advice. In fact, Cal Newport wrote abookabout exactly this topic arguing whydeveloping skills and optimizing yurself to be good at something is a far better career path than waiting for your passion.That said, I think it can be further supplemented.The Limitations ofGoodThe world we live in today is heavily dictated by theattention economy.There are far more stimuli in our average environment than there has ever been at any point in history.Our senses are constantly bombarded withnoise.This is particularly prominent on the internet, where the amount of i nformation and data produced continues to grow exponentially, but the digital reality is far from theonlyplace where this is true.Think about the buildings, advertisements, and attractions of the average large city in the world and compare that to how it may have looked 50 to 100 years ago. The chances are that you wouldnt even recognize it.What this has done is that,withso much competition for our attention, its put a premium on dedicated engagement.Indeed,to many companies, our attention is the most valuable metric to measure such engagement, and this fact has perpetuated a cycle of even more noise.While its true that the market rewards whats good and valuable over time, with the increasing noise, that time frame is getting longer and longer.In the words of legendary economist John Maynard KeynesMarkets can remain irrational a lotlongerthan you and I can remainsolvent.Very broadly speaking,beinggood alone isnt enough.We live in a world where being able to signal that competence is almost as important.Marketing yourself in some form is a necessity.The Power of InterestingThe best marketers in the world dont tell you theyre marketers.They tell you a story,theyengage you with genuine excitement, and theymostlytreat you like the human being you arerather than a number.It goes beyond that, too, though. Doing these things will take you far, but even so, in a noisy world, there is a particular quality that rewards some people over others. Its why they are able to capitalize on their competence.To be sure, tactics and hacks often do work in getting someone to pay attention to you, but building long-term trust in your competence takes more than that.It takes adegree of interestingness.The term interesting is fairly broad, but thats exactly its strength in this case.In order to get the attention you deserve you not only have to be so good they cant ignore you, butyou also have to be so interesting they cant ignore you.Interestingis whatmakes you stop and look twice. I nteresting is what inspires you to dig deeper.Interesting is how you stand out in the noise.Once you capture interest, your competence can do the work for you.The beauty of using this term is that it describes an output that always gets a response, but it can be accomplished through a multitude of inputs.You dont need to know the depths of every marketinghackin the book, nor are you circumstantially confined.All you need to do is optimize whatever it is youre selling, whether it be yourself or a product, for interestingness.More often than not, thatsdone bycapitalizing onwhatmakes youunique.The World MadeEasyWhile what weve talked about is most relevant to careers, all of this is far broader than that if we loosen up our definitions a little bit.Most people have a very narrow view of marketing because theyve been forced or tricked one too many times into having their time stolen.When you really break it downmarketing is justthepsychologyof getting someone to give you a moment ofthei rfocus.Nothingmore, nothing less.When youre giving a presentation at work or school, youre marketing.When youre at a bar hoping to make eye contact, youre marketing.Whenyoure telling someone a personal story, youre marketing.In each of these instances, youre vying not only for someones time but also their attention, with the hope and possibility of something more.The only way they are going to give you something more, however - whether it be their money, their company, or their empathy - isifsomething about you makes them take a second look.Something thatmakes them pause.How good you are at something isnt always visible even after the first glance.Toget someone coming back enough times for them to noticeyour competence, you have to add a bit of intrigue.Be so interesting you cant be ignored.This article first appeared on Design Luck .You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, stu dy finds10 lessons from kleine Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people