Most people think that this we call “charisma” is a gift and some of us are born with it. In her book “The Charisma Myth” Olivia Fox Cabane dispells that myth and show how we can all be charismatic whenever we want, wherever we want. Olivia is a lecturer at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, MIT, the Marine Corps War College and the United Nations and columnist for Forbes and The Huffington Post.
Her book has grabbed my attention, because I also thought that charisma is a gift that I certainly don’t have, but after reading it and implementing some of the ideas, I saw that it’s not difficult to increase your charisma. Here's how it’s done.
There is a Formula
I am an engineer and I like formulas and equations and I'm happy when I find one. Just like my post on Darren Hardy’s book “The Compound Effect” ( link here ) there is a formula and charismatic behavior can be broken down into three core elements: presence, power, and warmth.
>Charisma = Presence + Power + Warmth
Presence means you are here in the moment 100%. Not stuck in your head with your inner voices, not distracted by a mobile device, a social media, whatever. Give people your full attention and they will reward you for that. Power is all about whether you are perceived as having the ability to affect the world through our authority over others, large amounts of money, expertise, intelligence, sheer physical strength, or high social status.
Warmth is goodwill toward others and addresses the question: Will you use your power to hurt me or to benefit me?. Warmth tells us whether or not people will want to use whatever power they have in our favor. Being seen as warm means being perceived as any of the following: benevolent, altruistic, caring, or willing to impact our world in a positive way. Olivia tells us that, back in the day, we were on the lookout for signs of power and signs of warmth (or its absence). We evolved to be highly attuned to these signals.
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Up your game
Since we’ve seen what makes up charisma, let’s examine how we can improve on the three elements of it. I have written a whole post on Presence and you can find it here and Olivia suggests that we should also destigmatize discomfort. We need to know that feeling uncomfortable is normal and nothing’s wrong with you when you’re feeling stress, it’s part of the human experience. Then neutralize negativity. We can imagine negative thoughts as simply graffiti on the walls of your mind. Or, we can see those negative thoughts as little electrical impulses flickering in our brain. Or, we can simply label them “There’s some fear!”. We all have them, no big deal. Know that your chief obstacle to charisma is your own internal mental discomfort. Manage your internal states well and you’ll dial up your charisma. Make it ok to feel negativity by destigmatizing discomfort. Neutralize the negativity by seeing the thoughts as simply ashes in your brain and then rewrite your reality by choosing a more empowering story! The choice is our ours , what will we choose ?
But, it’s not enough to be present and powerful. We need to show people that we care about them. According to the author, there are three ways to cultivate our warmth: Gratitude, Goodwill and Compassion. Gratitude is straightforward. For what are you grateful? Count your blessings. Goodwill is essential. Basic idea: “Goodwill is the simple state of wishing others well.” Simply focusing on someone’s well-being and wanting them to experience joy boosts your warmth immediately. Compassion is our final avenue to boosting our warmth.
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It’s up to YOU !
Consciously or not, charismatic individuals choose specific behaviors that make other people feel a certain way. These behaviors can be learned and perfected by anyone. Contrary to commonly held charisma myths you don’t have to be naturally outgoing, you don’t have to be physically attractive, and you won’t have to change your personality. No matter where you’re starting from, you can significantly increase your personal charisma and reap the rewards both in business and in daily life. We have seen that charisma consists of three elements ( presence, power and warmth ) and how to boost them. Charisma is a skill it can be learned, exercised and perfected. Because we’re interacting with people all the time, we get to use our charisma tools on a daily basis. This means it’s so easy to become masters at it.
Will you exercise your charisma muscles ?
And until we all become Charismatic,
Be Healthy , Smile and Steem.
PS: Now, that you’ve reached the end of this post on Charisma, I suppose that you know what you could do and that is upvote, resteem and follow, because this way we can create more. Right ?
Additional Read
Olivia Fox Cabane official page
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