01/10/2026
Before anyone has consciously decided on whether they like you, their nervous system has already voted.
That’s what I told The Independent today when they asked why likeability is the one trait every Traitors winner has shared, whether they were a Traitor or a Faithful, and why being clever or strategic so often gets people banished.
We’re constantly scanning each other beneath awareness for the answer to one question, ‘is this person safe?’ and it arrives as a feeling in the body, long before it arrives as a thought. Once someone has made us feel good, we’ll stop looking for evidence and take them at face value instead - we’d rather keep the good feelings than test them. In the castle that’s what decides the game, and it decides most rooms you’ll ever walk into too.
In my experience none of this comes from charm, it comes from how connected a person is to themselves. Whatever’s going on inside you is in the room before you’ve opened your mouth, so the work on being liked, on being trusted, on being someone others feel safe with, starts inside - never with the smile.🥰
The Celebrity Traitors starts tonight. Who’s your early pick to be banished first, and what is it about them that’s making you uneasy?
Thank you to Katie Rosseinsky and The Independent for the conversation, read the full article and more from me via the link in my bio. Image: BBC/Studio Lambert via The Independent.