Here is the full transcript of business mogul Ben Chai’s talk titled “How To Be Socially Magnetic” at TEDxSurreyUniversity conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
How many people here would like to live 5, 10, 15, 20 years longer than their life expectancy? How many people are here? So, oh, that’s about 70%. The rest of you? How many people here would love to have a backup to your best friends? You know, the people who’ve got your back. But, you know, things happen to them. They get married and don’t want to talk to you anymore. They emigrate to another country where there’s no snow. You know, crazy things happen. How many would you like? Five besties, or 10, or 20. People who’ve got your back. About 60, 70%. The rest of the 30%, you’re good. Well, I have to make a confession.
A Confession and A Childhood Tale
I was probably with the 30% who didn’t want to live longer, who didn’t care about people. In fact, I would have been afraid of people. To make it worse, I was trying to shorten my life by doing things that would make me not be here anymore. Because that was my growing up days. And here I am, you’re thinking, you’re trying to teach me how to be magnetic. And I’m telling you the exact opposite. Because that’s how I felt.
Now, at the age of four and a half, I went to school. I was a little kid, yes. And I got beaten up by some giant monster. I think somebody from junior school. And I came home crying. I said, mum, what’s Chinese? I had no clue. Because in those days, the UK used to be quite racist compared to the really embracing country it is today. Now, my parents didn’t really know what to do.
Because they weren’t taught how to be parents. And I remember telling my aunt about what had happened. And my aunt told my parents. And my parents told me off for telling my aunt. And in the culture that I come from, you have to save face all the time. You can’t admit any weakness in your family. So, I had nowhere to go. Now, when I got to ten, my dad, his job changed.
A New Beginning in Singapore
And we moved to Singapore, where they thought I’d be fine. So, I went to a local school there. And I was fine. But remember, I’m actually a late grower. I didn’t shoot up to be the handsome guy I am until nineteen. So, I was still this small person. And immediately, I opened my mouth. There was a great difference.
Because out came this lovely English accent. And so, I was in fights for quite a long time. And really, it turns you into this kind of person who wants to shy away from everybody. And when you’re away from everybody, and you don’t have much value in yourself, you create this vicious cycle. You become that person that other bullies can go after. So, that was my life. Fast forward several decades, and there are things that I never dreamed I would have done.
From Hating Himself to Being Magnetic
I was sharing with some of my fellow speakers, being on stage last year, rapping with my son, who’s somewhere in the audience. And I don’t even know how to rap. I just like improv-ing. Being an improver. So, just amazing things. Famous people I’ve spent time with. And this is what I’m sharing about. How to be magnetic. My journey through from being that person who hated himself, and like 30% of you, didn’t want to live much, much longer.
I’m teasing you. It’s okay. I’m not going to send the assassins after you. It’s fine. So, there I was, thinking, what shall I do to get myself out of this rut? And by the way, it gets better with time. I went to university, and the people there were embracing of this crazy little boy. Because I grew up a year later after being at university.
University Life and Beyond
Just shot up. And my son helped me write a book last year called Social Magnetism. And it’s based along some of the life lessons that I’ve learned. On how to really get out there and attract some phenomenal people in your life. And live longer, and have fun at it. So, the first out of three things that I’m going to be sharing is you have to develop self-worth. Self-worth is the number one thing.
Now, I know some of you have seen many TED Talks, and I know you’re doing positive affirmations. Maybe some of you have even done self-hypnosis. Some of you don’t care, you just hate yourself so much. Who cares? Come and speak to me afterwards. And the one thing that I learned that was most effective to get your self-worth up, because remember, I didn’t like myself, was something called a mirror technique. And I have a lovely mirror here. See, you can see all your lovely selves. Look in that mirror and say how beautiful you are, if the light doesn’t reflect and blind you.
The Mirror Technique
And so, this is part one of the three things that you can do. So, the mirror technique is you look in that mirror. Oh, by the way, you need to be naked, which seems inappropriate for TEDx. So, you need to take off all your clothes and look in that mirror. And you have to look at that person as someone who is your best person.
And you need to tell that person in the mirror that you love them. You have to look at them. “Hey, Ben, I love you. You’re fantastic. You’re so wonderful. I love the way your eyes slant. That’s so amazing.” Nobody else’s eyes slant like that. That mole in the middle of your nose, that’s a beauty mole.
I love it. That big stomach there. “Yeah, maybe you could lose a few bits of weight. But, you know, I’m going to love you. And, you know, if you want to get rid of the weight, I’m going to help you. But if you don’t, I’m still going to love you.”
Accepting Yourself
And I tell you what, I’m going to do more than love you. I’m going to wake up with you every day and just tell you how much I love you. You’re fantastic. Yes, yes, I know. I know you cut up somebody in your car the other day. I know that. And I know you don’t call your friends.
Well, what’s a little bit of flakiness between friends? So you’ve got to not just look at your physical self but your emotional self. And you have to accept yourself the way you are. And this is why looking in the mirror is perhaps a little bit better than self-affirmations because I hear people with these self-affirmations. “I’m confident.” But inside yourself, you’re thinking, no, you’re not.
And your heart is arguing with your head. “I’m really confident. No, you’re not.” I just saw you the other day. You were just chickened out. So when you are confident… By the way, this took me three or four years. Probably I’m still getting more value in myself by doing this work. As you believe in yourself and get more value in yourself, you actually start looking more and more handsome. I was told how ugly I was as a little boy by close relatives practically every day. Today, I just think I’m one of the most handsome guys ever.
Being Magnetic and Adding Value
I really do. I look in the… Thank you. But it took time. So that’s the number one thing. And this is the foundational to being magnetic, to be attracting all the great people like many of you have. How are you attracted to me? This is… I’m overwhelmed.
So the second thing is to be able to add value to people everywhere you go. Now, somewhere in my life, I thought, what’s your mission? And my first mission was to give everyone their 15 minutes of fame. So who would like 15 minutes of fame here? One person? I can’t know. Many of you look all scared. This young man, I don’t know you, do I? Come up here, please. Please, come up here. Wow, look at the way you walk. I love that. Right, now. Oh, you took off your glasses as well.
Because of the top. Yes. Can you share? What’s your name to everyone? My name is Trajan. Trajan. Can you all hear him? Trajan. Wow, a big clap for Trajan. Trajan, I’m only going to ask you one question, and the question is this. What are you most passionate about? What makes you wake up in the morning and you think, whoa, please don’t think sex? Anything apart from that? I’d say art. Art. And which side of art? The performing one, the musical one, the… The musical art. And what about musical art?
Makes you get up and think, maybe even not sleep. Like, I went to bed at 9… No, I woke up at 9.30 last night and didn’t fall asleep since. What keeps you awake? Well, in a way, it’s a different dimension, in a different sense. It’s a higher frequency, it uplifts you, it changes your perspective. It changes your whole personality, the moment you just start absorbing it, the moment you… If you’re doing it, because I’m… So what kind of music is it? Is it instrumental, is it… It could be anything, anything that changes your mood, anything that… Hard rock?
The Impact of Music on Personality
I just recently did a little experiment when I was asked to do different tasks with music and without music, and the change of performance struck me as it actually changed my whole personality during the music, and I observed that with five other people in the experiment. “In your music experiment?” Yeah. Wow. Right. And how do I spell your name? It’s a big question. T-R-A… T-R-A… Y-A-N. T-R-Y… T-R-A-Y-A-N. T-R-A-Y-A-N. Trayan. Okay, that’s Trayan. Trayan, thank you so much.
Can I get a selfie with you? Let’s have it like so we can see all this lovely audience behind us. Here we go. This is going to count down. Here we go. Oh, you want to see who? Let’s do one more because I can do many. It’s digital. Three, two, one. Good, thank you. Thank you, Trayan. Please, please, thank you.
Now, when you add value, there are so many great ways to add value to people, but if I could just share something I didn’t ask Trayan. I didn’t say, what do you do? How old are you? How big is your family? None of those questions. Where do you live? I asked him a question. What makes you feel really excited about life? It’s one of the best questions you can ask anyone. There’s a whole set of TED Talks, there’s about 10 of them, on how to get great at conversation. Adding value is a little bit more than conversation and asking them auto-response questions because after a while you get fed up. What do you do?
Enhancing Conversations
And you know what the answer is. When people ask me, I used to make it up after a while. I’d just say, oh, I’m a milkman. I deliver soya, cheese, goat’s milk, whatever you want. I just used to make it up. So ask them some question that makes them feel excited when you meet a stranger. And I’ve never met Trayan before in my life. By the way, I talk to people on the underground, in restaurants, wherever I go.
And constantly I’m doing these kind of talks with people. This is part of being magnetic. How do I add value to Trayan? Well, the first thing is, some of you don’t have this, but a lot of people would love to be in a TEDx talk so that’s the first thing I did. But you don’t have that at your disposal. So the second thing I did when I engaged with him is I didn’t have my phone out while I was talking with him.
The third thing in this lost art of conversation because of social media is I’m going deeper with him. I didn’t just say, oh, so music, that’s great. What kind of music? Going deeper and deeper. And the fourth thing, even if I may not have loved music, and I love music. The speakers saw me singing in the room. But the fourth thing I did was I took a selfie with him. And that’s something you can easily do. Take a selfie with someone and put it on your social media. Give some points about, I just met Trayan and he taught me this about music and how it changes your mood.
Is he going to like my social media, my Instagram or my Facebook or whatever it is? So these are different ways. Over time you will develop a whole set of people that you know. The next way is you start connecting them with each other. That’s another way of adding value to people even if you personally don’t have any value to give. In the book we actually teach you the values that you have. So I said I was bullied but I also like to dance. I suffer from eczema.
I love comics. Somebody loved my bow tie. That’s because I love Doctor Who. These are all areas that I can talk and add value to you with, especially about Doctor Who and all the anecdotes. You have those things that you’ve been through and you can add value to other people’s lives. Now the third and final component of being magnetic is you need to learn to walk away. Run away from some of the crocodiles. I have a phrase which I post on my Facebook.
Choosing Your Circle Wisely
“Never teach a crocodile to floss because you might lose your arm and you’ll annoy the crocodile anyway.” And the reason for that is because there are some people who for whatever reason, either they don’t like you and they’re just tolerating you. Who wants to be tolerated? I mean, look, you’ve just looked in the mirror and you’ve seen that wonderful person. Why would that person want to be tolerated? Who wants to be made to feel guilty?
There are people in your life that I’m really sorry that might be a close relative. Sadly, my cousin was often made to feel like that. He was an A-star student and something terrible happened to him because of that. So you want to be able to walk away from the crocodiles. Sometimes we call them psycho-vampires who just suck you. And you’re just trying to give and help them and they don’t want it.
There’s a story where I, because I’m really good at technology, and a person I was working with asked me to go and fix the servers that had been infected on a Sunday. That Sunday was a special day with someone who I was… I wanted to marry this lady. And it took me three hours to go to the server room, four hours to de-infect the servers, three hours to come back.
I missed that lady because I’m not with her and I missed that day. And the person who sent me there said, well, you know, that’s just whatever. Didn’t pay my bills. You’d think at that point, with all the self-worth that I do today, I should have walked away by carrying on engaging with that person. A close relative of mine, she fell in love with somebody who has extreme paranoia. Not in the first year or the second year, but in the third or fourth year, she became extremely paranoid and started impacting on me. So you want to be able to recognize those crocodiles and surround yourself with people who just get you. They love your beauty, mole.
They don’t care if you’ve got a few extra pounds on you. They just love you for your personality and who you are. So the three things. Mirror technique for self-worth. The second thing, add value. Be an oasis in the storm. Waiters, waitresses, security guards, whoever. And the third thing, walk away from the crocodile.