The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism
Cabane, Olivia Fox
2 The Charismatic Behaviors: Presence, Power, and Warmth
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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4 Overcoming the Obstacles
Skillfully handling any difficult experience is a three-step process: destigmatize discomfort, neutralize negativity, and rewrite reality. Let’s get started. S
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Step One: Destigmatize Discomfort
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Putting It into Practice: Destigmatizing Discomfort
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Step Two: Neutralize Negativity
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Putting It into Practice: Neutralizing Negativity
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Step Three: Rewrite Reality
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Putting It into Practice: Rewriting Reality
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Putting It into Practice: Getting Satisfaction
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Being comfortable with discomfort.
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The answer, surprisingly, is to delve into those very sensations of discomfort. That’s right. Though it sounds counterintuitive, rather than trying to suppress, ignore, or power through them, your goal is to give your full attention to the very sensations you’d instinctively want to push away.
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Putting It into Practice: Delving into Sensations
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Putting It into Practice: Stretching Your Comfort Zone
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
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5 Creating Charismatic Mental States
Visualization
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6 Different Charisma Styles
Focus Charisma: Presence and Confidenc
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Developing Focus Charisma
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Visionary Charisma: Belief and Confidence
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Developing Visionary Charisma
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Kindness Charisma: Warmth and Confidence
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Developing Kindness Charisma
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Authority Charisma: Status and Confidence
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Authority charisma is primarily based on a perception of power: the belief that this person has the power to affect our world. We evaluate someone’s authority charisma through four indicators: body language, appearance, title, and the reactions of others.
Notes:Priorities in the same order.
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Developing Authority Charisma
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10 Difficult Situations
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince: perfection is not when there is no more to add, but when there is no more to subtract.
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11 Presenting with Charisma
Though we’ll cover a complete set of techniques for charismatic messaging, it all starts with knowing whom exactly we’re aiming to persuade
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The New York Times —one of the best and most respected newspapers in the United States—is purportedly written so simply that a tenth grader can understand it. 1 The paper’s readership includes highly educated business executives, successful entrepreneurs, and CEOs. But the editors know that their readers are often thinking about six things at once, juggling far too many balls in the air
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Select the single most important idea you want to convey and make it as crystal clear and easy to understand as you possibly can. Ideally, you should be able to articulate your message in one sentence.
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Stories have a particularly strong impact on people. In fact, audiences will often remember first the story, and only second the point the story was making. Since the dawn of time, people have been telling stories as a way to transmit information to one another. For your stories to be most effective, choose characters that are similar to the people in your audience to make them more relatable and make them as entertaining (and short!) as a Hollywood sneak preview. When you’re delivering a presentation, you’re in the entertainment business, whether you know it or not. So make the story dramatic. You’re calling on visionary charisma here; and as with all forms of charisma, you’re tapping into people’s emotional side.
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For maximum impact, choose images and analogies that would appeal to a young audience. The speeches that give us a feeling of awe and wonder are those that appeal to our childhood roots.
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Make even numbers and statistics personal, meaningful, and relatable for your audience. Steve Jobs did this masterfully when he gave his audience two ways of measuring iPhone sales: “Apple sold four million iPhones so far,” he said. “That amounts to selling twenty thousand iPhones every single day .” He did even better with memory cards: “This memory card has twelve gigabytes of memory. That means it holds enough music for you to travel to the moon and back.
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Whether you use a story, example, number, or statistic, make sure that you close with either a clear point or a transition to the action step you want your audience to take. Remember to make this so simple that even a multitasking, partially listening audience member would get it.
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When you craft the closing of your presentation, keep in mind that we remember primarily beginnings and endings. Just as you want to start on a high note, you also want to end on a high note, so avoid ending with Q&A. It’s hard to have a question-and-answer period as compelling and energetic as your main speech. Almost inevitably, the Q&A period lowers the energy.
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Just as you want to start on a high note, you also want to end on a high note, so avoid ending with Q&A. It’s hard to have a question-and-answer period as compelling and energetic as your main speech. Almost inevitably, the Q&A period lowers the energy.
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Once you’ve created your structure, you can start crafting your sentences. The pointers given in Chapter 8 will also help you choose your words here: It’s all about them. Use the word you as often as possible. Use their words, their stories, their metaphors: hole in one for golfers, shipwreck for sailors. Try also to match your verbs to your audience: lead or initiate for businessmen, build for engineers, craft for artists. Get graphic. The brain thinks in pictures, so choose language that is vivid and sensory-rich. Beware of negotiations: avoid the “no problem” trap. Keep it short. With each sentence, ask yourself: What value is this sentence delivering? Even when crafting stories, give only details that convey comprehension or enjoyment. Think sneak preview, not full-length movie.
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It’s all about them. Use the word you as often as possible. Use their words, their stories, their metaphors: hole in one for golfers, shipwreck for sailors. Try also to match your verbs to your audience: lead or initiate for businessmen, build for engineers, craft for artists. Get graphic. The brain thinks in pictures, so choose language that is vivid and sensory-rich. Beware of negotiations: avoid the “no problem” trap. Keep it short. With each sentence, ask yourself: What value is this sentence delivering? Even when crafting stories, give only details that convey comprehension or enjoyment. Think sneak preview, not full-length movie.
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Creating a Charismatic Appearance You’re going to be in the spotlight, so think carefully about the message you want to convey through your clothing. Is it authority? Power? Warmth? Keep in mind what social psychologists’ research reveals about chromatic effects: 2 Red conveys energy, passion. Wear red to wake up an audience. Black shows you’re serious and that you won’t take no for an answer. White exudes honesty and innocence, which is why defendants often choose it in the courtroom. Blue emits trust. The darker the shade, the deeper the level of trust it elicits. Gray is a good neutral, the quintessential color of business. Orange and yellow are not recommended. Because they are the first to attract the human eye, they are also the first to tire it.
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In order to project confidence and move with ease on stage, you also need to feel physically confident. Make sure nothing is hindering your movements, impairing your balance, or in any other way diminishing your comfort. It’s hard enough to feel fully comfortable on stage while facing an audience alone, without having to deal with physical discomfort on top of it all! This means wearing clothing you can breathe in and shoes that are stable. Your brain’s first job is to monitor your safety, whether it’s your ability to escape predators or your ability to stay upright. If it has to spend any of its attention worrying about your breathing or your balance, that means that at least one part of your attention can’t be devoted to your speaking success
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Charisma takes practice. Steve Jobs, who appeared so masterful on stage, was known to rehearse important presentations relentlessly. Just as a duck appears to be sailing smoothly on the surface of a lake while powerfully paddling below the waterline, it takes a whole lot of effort for a presentation to appear effortless. When a speech is important I practice until every breath is perfect, because knowing I’ve got the speech so well mastered allows me to be spontaneous. I know that I have muscle memory to fall back on. When you know that a particular presentation will have a significant impact on your career, it’s worth rehearsing until you feel that it’s part of your very bones. One interesting technique used by magicians is to run through the entire presentation once with their eyes closed
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Another good practice is to have your speech audiotaped or, better yet, videotaped, and to count what professional speakers call irritants. These are any sounds or movements that do not add to your message. Because the audience is watching your every move, every sound and facial expression you make is a form of communication that demands a portion of their attention. Be strategic: make sure you’re getting value out of each nonverbal gesture you make, and limit superfluous gestures to avoid wasting any bit of your audience’s attention. If you’ve been videotaped, ask three people to point out any unnecessary gestures—any tics or distractions. If you’ve been audiotaped, have the speech transcribed and ask them to note every “um” and “ah.” Don’t do it yourself—it’s much harder to hear our own irritants, and transcription services are inexpensive
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This is called owning the stage, and there are three tricks to making it happen. First, when you stand, be sure to have a wide stance, well balanced on both feet. Not only will you feel more confident, you’ll also look more confident, more stable, than if you were standing on one foot. Wide, stable stances also help you to project confidence. Be the gorilla! Second, practice without a podium or a lectern. Speaking behind one can give the impression that you’re fearful to venture out, and prefer staying behind the safety of a shield. It also makes the presentation much more static. Think of the stereotype of a boring presentation: a lecturer who stands immobile at his lectern, reading from his notes in a monotone voice. Moving comfortably around the stage will make you appear much more confident, powerful, and charismatic. Third, find the right volume to project confidence. This is tricky, as so much can depend on the microphone you’re given that day or how the sound system is set up. Your best bet is, just before the speech, to ask a few people sitting in the back of the room to be your sound experts and give you a prearranged signal to raise or lower your volume if need be.
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