Howie: Here is another thing I realized: after I almost lost my life I discovered that while I was not really afraid of death, I was terrified of that last minute just before I died. In that moment, I had to run through my head all of the things I had desired in my life. Had I even attempted to achieve some of my desires?

What terrified me was that if I were to ask myself that question right then, I couldn’t live with the answer. I had put off everything that I had wanted to do, and it was such bullshit!

David: I don’t think people are afraid of death, I think that they are afraid of living. So many of us are in a coma all of the time – a self-induced coma.

Taking risks proves that you’re alive. Pushing your boundaries proves your vitality. If you haven’t pushed your personal boundaries today, then you haven’t lived.

As we’re sitting here chewing our food, I’ll ask you this: how did you live today? How did you push your boundaries? How did you force yourself to do something new? What did you do to challenge yourself today?

It’s essential to always challenge yourself no matter what you do. You’re on the path of just challenging yourself beyond belief. Chris, I think you’re the same path. You have always been on that path, you’re just starting that path and you are starting it too.

You have to start that path somewhere, somehow, sometime. But after you start that path, what are you going to do to challenge yourself further? You always have to keep challenging yourself every day.

I always tell people after they take any type of training with me to make a to-do list. We’re all so great with our to-do lists, right? We do them at work everyday. Make a to-do list. “Today I’m going to talk to five strangers. I normally eat lunch at my desk, but today I’m going to go to Whole Foods and talk to the people next to me. On the way home from work tonight, I’m going to have dinner at Baja Fresh (or whatever it is) and I’m going to talk to people. I’m going to learn how to be memorable.”

We’re all memorable. We’re most memorable when we push ourselves beyond our personal comfort levels. When you push your boundaries, you become memorable. People say, “man, that guy was so nice, he asked me great questions!”

Today we saw that guy fom the furniture store and you really connected with him. I was watching his body language and I saw a genuine smile. That’s the thing with people in retail – if you bored them in the store, they will run from you if they see you outside of the store. But this guy didn’t – he stopped and talked to you and gave you a genuine smile.

You pushed yourself beyond your boundaries. Many people truly believe that they are overstepping their boundaries if they get personal with someone. However, as human beings, we’re craving getting personal with others.

I love it when I meet somebody who is interested in what I do. I love when they are interested in me, and compliment me and make me feel good.

You got a great confirmation from that guy. You can say to yourself, wow, this guy really remembered me!

I know how this works, because I bartended for seven years. When I was bartending, I would have people come up to me on the street that had drank in my bar all of the time and I’ll have no idea who they were. They weren’t memorable.

They’d say, “hey, David, how are you?” and I’d have to play it off and say, “hey, man…” I had to call everybody ‘man!’ I’d play it off, and then we’d walk away, and the friend I was with would ask me who that was. I’d have to answer, “I have no idea.”

That night I’d go back to work and I’d see the person again and think, oh my god. This person has been coming to my bar for so long but they were never memorable. They never shared anything with me.

Now, there are two ways to be very memorable: one is to ask questions and get deeper with someone, but you also have to share something about yourself.

Whenever you leave a place, you have to 1) connect with people by asking a lot of questions and 2) leave a part of yourself with everyone you talk to.

Give them the gift of yourself. Share something with them. Maybe it’s about skiing. Whatever it might be. Your last trip to Mexico, how funny it was – whatever! It doesn’t matter.

You want to leave something behind of yourself. You want to leave part of your soul behind so that others can remember you. You don’t want to be that invisible person that walks into a bar every single night but nobody knows your name.

Just like Cheers – you want to go where everybody knows your name!

You think you have flaky people in Missouri, right? You have flaky people in Vegas? You have flaky people all over Southern California, right? And there are flaky people all over Jersey and New York, right? And in Arizona…

But here’s the thing about flaky people: they don’t exist. If someone flakes on you, it just means that they are not really that sure about you. They are just indecisive about if they are into you or not.

We all flake on people that we’re indecisive about. Do you know how many times I’ve been invited to a party or out to dinner with some people, and then at the last minute I realize that I really don’t want to go? And I bail out.

Does this make me a flaky person? No, it’s just because the people that were invited to the party just didn’t really intrigue me enough to want to go. It wasn’t worth my time to go.

Client: You said you were going to go in the first place?

David: Of course! We always accept those invitations before we think about it.

Client: Yeah, we all do that to a degree.

David: Right, and then later – at the last minute – we realize that the person that we’re going to go hang out with doesn’t really excite us, so why are we going to go give up one of our nights?

So when people bitch and complain about people being flaky in terms of dating and other things, I just tell them to let it go. You just didn’t excite them enough, and for once you’re on this end of the stick. More often you’re the one flaking on somebody.

If someone is truly excited about hanging out with you, they are not going to break the plans. If they do have to break the plans, they will say something to you like, “something at work just came up, can we do something tomorrow night?”

Khiem: And if you seem to be meeting constant flakes, well, then you just aren’t exciting or intriguing enough.

But this blog is not about the weather. Though I have to say that when I was a kid I really did want to grow up to be the weatherman. I thought it would be awesome to just stand there, have a cute little woman take the sun cutout and turn it in circles for me. I’d have my own Vanna White of the weather world! But that’s just a fantasy of mine, and it’s none of your business…

So let’s keep going. There is something that Howard Stern once said that I think you all need to listen to and deeply consider. Howard Stern was being interviewed somewhere, and the interviewer asked him, “Howard, how do you feel about all of these people hating you?”

Here is what Howard Stern basically said: “you know what? I don’t care if people hate me. I don’t really care if people love me. I just want to be able to create an emotion in them.”

Think about that quote for a second.

If every single person in your life describes you as being “such a nice guy,” here is what they are really saying: you are boring! You just fit in. You don’t stand out, and you certainly don’t create an emotion in them.

You want people to either love you or hate you.

Hate might seem like a very strong word; let’s go deeper into it. It is better to have someone disagree with you, and for you to create an emotion in him or her, than for you to just go through life as the invisible man.

Many people go through life as either the invisible man or invisible woman. Being invisible means that people just don’t really remember you all that much. Some of you dress very conservatively, and some of you dress so that you won’t stand out. It’s no wonder that nobody really remembers you!

When you walk in somewhere, you talk to people in a mellow voice, and you’re so afraid to challenge anyone that no one remembers you as soon as you walk out the door.

How many times have you walked into the same clothing store or bagel place and the guy behind the counter acts like he’s never seen you before? Like this is the very first time you’ve ever ordered coffee from him?

Why is this? Because you haven’t created an emotion in him. If you don’t create an emotion for someone – whether it is positive or negative – no one will ever remember you, and they certainly won’t want to date you. You will continue to go through life as the invisible man. Is that what you want?

Instead of monitoring your thoughts and getting caught inside your head all of the time, start challenging people! Stop playing it so safe. Playing it safe will never get you what you want.

The problem with playing it safe is that you will always have people look at you and say, “wow, he’s really nice, but I don’t know anything about him!”

Client: How do you start challenging people? What can you do to challenge people?

David: There are a few different things you can do to start challenging people and creating that emotion.

Let’s say that you’re in Starbucks, and there is a woman standing next to you in line. You take the time to mellow out and calm yourself, and then when you look at her, you notice that she has an indecisive look on her face. Remember, we can all read emotions; we just may not give ourselves permission to do so.

So you can look at her and say, “you look like you’re indecisive. You don’t know what you want to order?” She’ll respond, “god, I have no idea.”

What most guys will do at this point is just back down. They might say something stupid like, “oh, you should get a latte,” and offer suggestions, but they don’t take it further.

What you can do is say to her, “alright, tell me. What do you like, and what don’t you like, Ms. Indecisive?”

Challenge her. Have fun with it. That is what you really want to say to her, because you’re curious about her. You want to know why she’s indecisive right now, and you want to know what she’s all about.

By doing this, you’ll be able to challenge her in a different way. You will be able to take the conversation from small talk to real talk much easier.

A lot of guys will get freaked out and go back to that initial moment, asking her again, “well what kind of coffee do you like?” They have opened her successfully, but then they don’t know how to take the conversation further.

By challenging her, you’re going to take the conversation further as you take her away from the original topic. It won’t just be small, boring talk.

Start creating emotions in people and you will start being memorable!