Latest / Becoming Irresistible / Season 2, Episode 19: Irresistibility Spotlight: John Travolta

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Season 2, Episode 19: Irresistibility Spotlight: John Travolta · Becoming Irresistible

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Becoming Irresistible.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jay, high achievement lifestyle strategist and irresistibility expert.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're doing another irresistibility spotlight.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: These spotlights are so we can examine the lives of people who came before us, of places that we've gone to that are magnetic, of products that bring us to another place in our life, so that we can learn lessons from them and then apply them to our own life.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to talk about somebody famous.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are some people who become famous, and then there's some people who become stars.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a very small number of people who somehow manage to become stars more than once.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: John Travolta is one of them.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Think about all the different versions of John Travolta that have existed in our culture.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's Vinnie Barberino in Welcome Back Cotter, there's Tony Monero walking down a Brooklyn street carrying two slices of pizza in Saturday Night Fever.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's Danny Zucco in Greece.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's Vincent Vega dancing with Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the action star a Faesaw.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there's even the comedic Travolta.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: But let's not forget the dramatic Travolta, the singing Travolta, the Dancing Travolta, and eventually even the wonderfully over-the-top Edna Turnblad in Hairspray.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't simply different roles.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: They represent different versions of the same person that audiences have been willing to accept.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what makes John Travolta uniquely interesting to me from the standpoint of irresistibility.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because his career raises a fascinating question.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: What makes someone compelling enough that we are willing to rediscover them over and over again?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to look at John Travolta, not simply as an actor, but as a case study in charisma, identity, resilience, and reinvention.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're going to ask the question I always want us asking in an irresistibility spotlight.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: What can we take away from this?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not his fame, not the dancing, although if you get a few moves from him, that's not a bad thing.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not his movie star looks, but the qualities underneath them.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about before Travolta was Travolta.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: John Travolta was born in Englewood, New Jersey in 1954 by my sources.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the first things that's really interesting about his stories is that performance wasn't just some random career he discovered later in life.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: He grew up surrounded by it.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: His mother was involved in acting and drama, and several of his siblings pursued entertainment careers.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jean Travolta eventually left school and pursued acting professionally.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then came Welcome Back Cotter.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: He played Vinnie Barbarino, the handsome, swaggering, slightly ridiculous leader of the sweat hogs.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And something happened.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: People didn't just like the character, they really noticed.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: At the height of the show's popularity, Travolta was reportedly receiving thousands upon thousands of fan letters.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Public appearances would attract enormous crowds.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: He had that thing that we sometimes have difficulty defining presence, star quality.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: But presence alone doesn't explain what happened next because Travolta was facing one of the first great dangers of success, being trapped by the very thing that made you successful.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hollywood knew who John Travolta was.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was Vinnie Barberino.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Travolta didn't want to spend the rest of his life being Vinnie Barberino.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: That brings us to our first irresistibility lesson.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Principle number one, don't confuse what made you successful with who you are.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: This happens to high achievers all the time.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're good at something.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: People recognize it, they reward you for it, they know you for it, and suddenly that strength becomes an identity.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're the smart one, you're the responsible one, the athlete, the doctor, the lawyer, the entrepreneur, the funny one, the dependable one.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that success quietly builds a cage around you because everyone wants more of it, and more of those things that you've already proven you can do.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's natural.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: No one's to blame for that.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Travolta could have easily stayed inside the Vinnie Barbarino identity, but instead he took a risk, and that risk was Saturday night fever.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about the walk.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's an extraordinary lesson contained in just the opening few minutes of Saturday night fever.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: You see Travolta's Tony Monero walking through Brooklyn.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's not accomplishing anything extraordinary.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's walking.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's carrying paint.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's buying pizza, and yet you can't stop watching him.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because charisma is often less about what you're doing than about the conviction with which you occupy your own space.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Tony Monero walks as though the sidewalk belongs to him.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Travolta understood something about physical performance that matters far outside acting.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: The body communicates way before the mouth does.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Posture, movement, eye contact, rhythm, stillness, how quickly you move, how comfortable you are in the space and occupying a space.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things communicate information before you ever say a word.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then Travolta dances.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting is that Tony isn't merely someone who can dance.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Dancing is where Tony becomes a person he believes he could be.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Outside the club, his life is limited.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Inside it, he's extraordinary.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's our second lesson.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Principle number two find an environment where your strength becomes visible.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people think they aren't exceptional because they're judging themselves in the wrong environment.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Tony Monero isn't particularly impressive working in a paint store, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: But put them on a dance floor and everything changes.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's true in real life.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who seems ordinary in one environment can become magnetic in another because suddenly you're seeing them in the context that really reveals their strengths.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why part of becoming irresistible isn't merely asking what am I good at?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's asking where does what I'm good at become valuable and recognized and appreciated?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very different question.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: In our foundational programs about success, happiness, longevity, we talk about some of these principles, about things to really consider in your life, making decisions that will take you towards happiness, not away from it.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Where does what I'm good at become valuable and appreciated?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's now talk about my favorite, Danny Zucko.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Greece turned Travolta into an entirely different kind of cultural phenomenon.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: He could act, he could dance, he could sing, he could be masculine and playful, cool, but also ridiculous, confident and vulnerable, and there's an extremely important principle buried there.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: We often think charisma comes from having one very strong characteristic, but some of the most compelling people actually possess contrasting characteristics.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're powerful but warm, confident but also capable of laughing at themselves, intelligent but curious, ambitious but playful, polished, but sometimes vulnerable.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: That contrast creates real dimension, dimension that people are attracted to.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And not being completely perfect is also something that draws people in, allows them to fill a bridge with you.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So having that dimension creates curiosity.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because once I know who you are, there's really nothing left for me to discover.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have these little surprises here and there or something that doesn't quite make sense, if all of a sudden you lose it when you're usually composed, that will actually make me curious.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: What happened there?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: If occasionally you say something very warm when you're normally cold, I will be curious to see what triggered that, right?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Our brain looks for those differences, those little quirks that come out, sometimes come out when you're not thinking about what everybody else is seeing, or how they're perceiving you, or how you look.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Those little moments can actually drive a lot of curiosity and really pull people in because they feel a connection maybe to some of those imperfections or flaws or some of those characteristics where they also feel vulnerable or maybe ridiculous or maybe a moment of brilliance, or maybe when they're not composed, when they usually have to be composed all the time.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those little moments draw you in and make you feel endeared towards characters.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I can think of one example just recently.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have a very composed friend who told me about a rather dangerous hobby that they have.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I would have never guessed.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would have never known.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It came out randomly in conversation, and all of a sudden my interest was piqued.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, I would have never guessed that about you, and it really heightened my awareness of this person and their presence and made me curious.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have that image in my mind of them doing this lobby when I would have never placed them in any dangerous situation at all.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So those kind of little quirks can really draw people into you, at least pique their curiosity, and bring you a little bit of attention.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And also help them bridge a connection with things that they've gone through themselves.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why one of the reasons trying too hard really can make someone actually less interesting.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Think of all your favorite celebrities.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: What are you drawn to?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're drawn to those little things about them that make them different than everyone else, not the thing that makes them perfect and polished.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're flawless.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like we want to find the humanity in them, right?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So perfection is predictable, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: We want dimension, we want depth.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Travolta was extremely good at looking extraordinarily cool and then turning around and doing something completely goofy.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: He could project masculinity and then break into a choreographed dance number.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Later in his career, he was even willing to transform himself into Edna Turnblood and Hairspray.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a freedom in that, and there's also surprise and delight for the people who are around you when they're not quite sure what it is you're gonna do next.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now this doesn't mean you have to keep shocking people.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: It just means that people are attracted when someone isn't comfortable enough with themselves that they don't have to constantly defend one particular image.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's go to where Travolta's story becomes much more interesting.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because Travolta's story, let's face it, it isn't a straight line up.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: After Saturday Night Fever, Greece, an Urban Cowboy, his career cooled down.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: There were successes, but there were also failures.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: There were films that just didn't connect well with the audience, and eventually Hollywood largely stopped thinking of John Travolta as one of its most desirable leading men.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I think we get one of the most important lessons today for high achievers.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your value and the world's current recognition of your value are not the same thing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the marketplace changes.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean who doesn't remember when toilet paper was the most valuable thing on the planet during COVID?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: But now that is not the case anymore.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes tastes change.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you make bad choices.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes a person will become fashionable.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is not you.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you really do need to make improvements.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: But just because someone is not clapping for you doesn't necessarily mean your abilities have disappeared.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's incredibly difficult to remember when you're accustomed to success and to recognition and achievement and wanting people to see that you've still got it or that you're better than you were the day before.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when the evidence doesn't always point that way, it's really hard.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard when you're getting external signals that say otherwise.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: But like I tell clients I work with, success is not always a straight line up and up.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: It does have dips and valleys, and it is our goal to have an overall arch that's going upward, but you're going to have down points, low points, places where you're not in your best form.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's normal.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to our principle number four, which is don't let external attention become your measurement of your internal value.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because if your identity depends on everyone else's opinion, on you being wanted, then eventually you're going to become terrified of not being wanted, of not having approval.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And frightened people make very different decisions from confident people.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: They chase, they cling, they become desperate to recreate what worked before.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: But reinvention requires another type of thing.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: It requires enough internal security to say maybe the next version of me is not going to look like the previous version.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to Quentin Tarantino.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: By the early 1990s, John Travolta was not the obvious choice for Vincent Vega.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, people involved in Pulp Fiction have described just how strongly there was resistance to casting him.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Tarantino wanted him, but others didn't.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But Tarantino saw something fascinating.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't need Travolta to become the 1978 version of John Travolta again.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: He saw how the audience's memory of Travolta could become part of this character.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Vincent Vega's cool, but he's also strange.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's dangerous.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's funny, sometimes almost absurd.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then Tarantino does something brilliant.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: He lets John Travolta dance, but not like his old character, not like Tony Monero, not like Danny Zucco, like Vincent Vega.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the audience still recognizes something familiar in the same time they're seeing something completely different.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: That bridge of having familiarity but still seeing something completely new is what helps people to really feel drawn in.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Pulp Fiction doesn't merely give Travolta another successful movie, it really changes the way Hollywood sees him.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: His performance earned major award recognition, including a Golden Globe nomination, and it revitalized his whole career, which perhaps gives us the biggest lesson of our entire spotlight.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Principle number five.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Reinvention doesn't require you to reject your past.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think reinventing ourselves means becoming someone completely different, completely disassociating with the past.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the strongest reinventions often do something much more sophisticated.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: They preserve recognizable elements and the recognizable core, but changing the superficial expressions.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Travolta never stopped being Travolta.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Travolta was still dancing, the movement was still there, the humor was still there, the coolness was still there.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: His slightly unusual energy was still there, but it had matured, it changed context.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And reinvention is really about expanding your identity, not erasing it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that matters enormously for people who are young, high achievers, because at 18 or 22, you can feel enormous pressure to figure out what you're going to be.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps that's the wrong question.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't have to determine what exactly you're going to be.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to determine what qualities you actually want to carry with you through the many things you might become.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's going to happen that you're going to reinvent yourself many times throughout your life.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: The important thing is to understand your core identity.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing we do in our programs, which is identify your core ID.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to do that, please take a look at our programs.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because knowing those things is going to help you have this flexibility in your life, but also remain consistent and stable throughout your life.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's another quality I think deserves some attention that we can witness from John Travolta.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: John Travolta has never seemed particularly afraid of looking ridiculous.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a moment.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: For someone whose early fame was based partly on being extraordinarily cool, that could become a prison.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, throughout his career, he has danced, sung, played comedy, played villains, and transformed himself physically for roles.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And hairspray might be one of the best examples.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: The man who had once been Danny Zuko was now playing Edna Turnblad.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: That requires something surprisingly important.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Ego flexibility.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And ego flexibility may be one of the most underrated ingredients of charisma.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're constantly protecting your dignity, you're constantly having to monitor yourself.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: How do I look?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: What are people thinking?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Was that embarrassing?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do they respect me?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: That self-monitoring makes spontaneity almost impossible and carries a large stress load.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Playfulness requires risk.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Humor requires risk.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Creativity requires risk.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes irresistibility requires being willing to look a little foolish.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: So here's principle number six.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Stop protecting your image so much that you lose your personality.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to look impressive every second.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to become secure enough that looking unimpressive for a moment doesn't threaten you.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's liken it to your diet, right?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: If 99% of the time you have a great diet, if one time you eat a dessert, it's not going to hurt you.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing applies to your confidence, your security.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you're secure enough 99% of the time, when you have that momentary fall or something ridiculous happen, it's not going to threaten you.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's real freedom.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that freedom is magnetic.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about longevity.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Travolta's career has stretched now across more than five decades.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And consider how much has changed during that period.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Disco came and then went, movie musicals changed, television changed, Hollywood changed, and the meaning of celebrity changed, social media appeared, entirely new generations of audiences appeared, yet John Travolta remains incredibly recognizable.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't continuously dominant through that entire time, but he was always recognizable.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps longevity isn't about remaining at the top every second.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe longevity is about maintaining enough adaptability that there is another chapter that's going to be available to you.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to our principle number seven.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Longevity requires evolution.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: The qualities that make you irresistible at 20 may not be the same qualities that make you irresistible at 40 or 60 or 70.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you spend your life trying to recreate the version of you where you got the most applause or that you liked the most, eventually you're going to become an imitation of yourself.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: So growth actually asks a different question.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: What does the next version of me look like?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not how do I get back to there, but where can I go from here?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if I had to really break down John Travolta's irresistibility into components, here's what I would identify.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, his physical presence.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: He understands that movement, posture, rhythm, and communication of the body is super important.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it can communicate so much before you say a word.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that Vanessa Ben Edwards, who studies charisma and behavioral science, she says that you can even predict who people will be receptive to based on the way they walk into a room, not even the words they say.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is super important for our high achievers out there is take a look at some of these John Travolta movies.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Take a look at the way he uses his body, his movements, his posture.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, these are scripted characters, but you can use those principles in your life as well.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can take some of those principles into your everyday practice.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Just because it's on a film screen doesn't mean we can't use it.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Take a look at those movies, learn the way he moves his body and what kind of effects that has on the people around him and on you as the audience and see how you might apply one or two of those things into your life.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is the contrast.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about how Travolta always mixed two sides: masculinity with playfulness, coolness with humor, and confidence with vulnerability.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be intoxicating when you find a person who has the ability to show those contrasts because we actually all have them, but most of the time people are not willing to show both sides.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then we talked about number three, range.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: He developed enough abilities that audiences could experience him in different ways and in different times.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, he showed ego flexibility.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: He has always been willing to look silly, strange, exaggerated, or completely unlike the image that originally made him famous.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And number five, resilience.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: His career demonstrates that losing momentum does not mean you have to lose relevance forever.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because he used number six reinvention.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: He repeatedly allowed audiences to see another version of him.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: But number seven, he retained a recognizable core.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Despite all those transformations, there's something unmistakably Travolta about John Travolta and every one of his characters.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the balance we're all looking for.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Strong enough identity to be recognizable, flexible enough identity to evolve.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So for this week, here's what I want you to think about.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself three questions.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's my recognizable core?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what qualities seem to follow me everywhere?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is something we do in all of our programs.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to do a core ID, so that's attached to every one of our programs.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you can try that exercise to really start to understand yourself and to understand what's going to stay throughout your life and what areas you can be flexible about.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the first question is what's my recognizable core?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Which is what qualities seem to follow me everywhere?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's humor, warmth, curiosity, intensity, creativity, calm, ambition, empathy.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Those are just some examples.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Those may be part of your core.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: The second question then is what version of myself am I still trying to protect?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, is it a past version of yourself?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the successful student?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the athlete, the executive, the perfect parent?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Being attractive, being the smartest?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, in what ways has that identity that served you at one time, how is it maybe now limiting you?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself that question.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: How is an old identity that you've had currently limiting you?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, what would reinvention look like if I didn't have to abandon who I am?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's the part of John Schwolda's story that is most compelling for me.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't get one moment, he got several.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the reason is because he stayed true to who he was at his core, but he also allowed himself that flexibility, flexibility in his performance and in his ego to do things that were different from what people expected or from how he was perceived.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, in closing, I think John Travolta became famous because he could command attention.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: But he's really interesting because he actually lost that attention.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he got it back.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Someone in Hollywood, a filmmaker, looked at him and saw a different possibility.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And John Travolta was willing to step into it.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's reinvention.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your first success doesn't have to be your greatest success.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Your most celebrated identity doesn't have to become your permanent identity.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're going to appear when people stop noticing you, that doesn't necessarily mean you've stopped having something worth noticing.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the world hasn't seen the next version of you yet, and maybe that's what's holding you back, is that you aren't allowing the next version of yourself to be seen.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the most irresistible people aren't the people who never change.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're the people who somehow manage to change but stay recognizable to themselves.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you've enjoyed this irresistibility spotlight and take away any principles that you can use.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: As I always tell people, not everything is going to work for every person.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Use the things that work for you and leave the things that don't.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Some of these principles will work for you as they've worked for John Travolta.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: But some of them may not work for your situation.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: But there's plenty of more irresistibility spotlights coming, and you can take other lessons from other places, people, and things that may help you tremendously.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: So don't think that just because some of these things you don't feel apply to you, that doesn't mean there's not other things out there that will.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening with me today.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to subscribe and follow.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on our social media.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Also share these posts if you like them.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: That always helps us to get more support and bringing in guests that you may be really interested in hearing or to talk about topics that you really like to discuss.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: But our goal is to help every person out there to achieve their own irresistible life.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because we truly feel that if each person is able to follow their path towards their irresistible life, then this world would become an irresistible place to live.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want for my children and what I want for the world.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for joining us for this podcast.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay irresistible.